Bertrand Russell on Common Words and Proper Names: “Common words, even proper names, are usually really descriptions. That is to say, the thought in the mind of a person using a proper name correctly can generally only be expressed explicitly if we replace the proper name by a description.” See, there really is something in a name! This is why dead naming is so painful…

Bertrand Russell on Knowledge: “Is there any knowledge in the world which is so certain that no reasonable man could doubt it?” Sense-data and sensation, such as seeing colors, versus reality

Bertrand Russell on Looking Into Ourselves: “When we try to look into ourselves we always seem to come upon some particular thought or feeling, and not upon the ‘I’ which has the thought or feeling. ”

Bertrand Russell on Matter: “We commonly mean by ‘matter’ something which is opposed to ‘mind’, something which we think of as occupying space and as radically incapable of any sort of thought or consciousness.”

Bertrand Russell on our Perception of Time: “With regard to time, our feeling of duration or of the lapse of time is notoriously an unsafe guide as to the time that has elapsed by the clock. Times when we are bored or suffering pain pass slowly, times when we are agreeably occupied pass quickly, and times when we are sleeping pass almost as if they did not exist. Thus, in so far as time is constituted by duration, there is the same necessity for distinguishing a public and a private time as there was in the case of space. But in so far as time consists in an order of before and after, there is no need to make such a distinction; the time-order which events seem to have is, so far as we can see, the same as the time-order which they do have. At any rate no reason can be given for supposing that the two orders are not the same. The same is usually true of space…” Distinguishing a public and a private time just like public and private space… that’s intriguing stuff.

Bertrand Russell on Philosophy: “Philosophy, if it cannot answer so many questions as we could wish, has at least the power of asking questions which increase the interest of the world, and show the strangeness and wonder lying just below the surface even in the commonest things of daily life.”

Bertrand Russell on the “Self”: “‘I think, therefore I am’ says rather more than is strictly certain. It might seem as though we were quite sure of being the same person to-day as we were yesterday, and this is no doubt true in some sense. But the real Self is as hard to arrive at as the real table, and does not seem to have that absolute, convincing certainty that belongs to particular experiences.”

Bertrand Russell on the Hierarchy of Our Instinctive Beliefs: “Philosophy should show us the hierarchy of our instinctive beliefs, beginning with those we hold most strongly, and presenting each as much isolated and as free from irrelevant additions as possible.”

Bertrand Russell on those who wish to become a philosopher: “…whoever wishes to become a philosopher must learn not to be frightened by absurdities.” This seems to be a real problem today.

Bertrand Russell on Two Sorts of Knowledge: “There are two sorts of knowledge: knowledge of things, and knowledge of truths.”