Bertrand Russell Progress Quotations

A process which led from the amoeba to man appeared to the philosophers to be obviously a progress though whether the amoeba would agree with this opinion is not known.

I remain convinced that obstinate addiction to ordinary language in our private thoughts is one of the main obstacles to progress in philosophy.

The desire to understand the world and the desire to reform it are the two great engines of progress, without which human society would stand still or retrogress. It's coexistence or no existence.

Collective wisdom, alas, is no adequate substitute for the intelligence of individuals. Individuals who opposed received opinions have been the source of all progress, both moral and intellectual. They have been unpopular, as was natural.

It is only through imagination that men become aware of what the world might be; without it, ‘progress’ would become mechanical and trivial.

An extra-terrestrial philosopher, who had watched a single youth up to the age of twenty-one and had never come across any other human being, might conclude that it is the nature of human beings to grow continually taller and wiser in an indefinite progress towards perfection; and this generalization would be just as well founded as the generalization which evolutionists base upon the previous history of this planet.

I cannot escape from the conclusion that the great ages of progress have depended upon a small number of individuals of transcendent ability.

Change is one thing, progress is another.

Moral progress has consisted in the main of protest against cruel customs, and of attempts to enlarge human sympathy.

The free intellect is the chief engine of human progress.

All the important human advances that we know of since historical times began have been due to individuals of whom the majority faced virulent public opposition.

In science men have discovered an activity of the very highest value in which they are no longer, as in art, dependent for progress upon the appearance of continually greater genius, for in science the successors stand upon the shoulders of their predecessors; where one man of supreme genius has invented a method, a thousand lesser men can apply it.