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The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

by Bertrand Russell

4.06 of 5 stars 4.06 · rating details · 657 ratings · 48 reviews

Bertrand Russell was born in 1872 and died in 1970. One of the most influential figures of the twentieth century, he transformed philosophy and can lay claim to being one of the greatest philosophers of all time. He was a Nobel Prize winner for Literature and was imprisoned several times as a result of his pacifism. His views on religion, education, sex, politics and many ...more

Paperback , 749 pages

Published March 10th 2000 by Routledge (first published January 1st 1950)

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Jan 11, 2009 Manny rated it 3 of 5 stars

The most memorable sentence is definitely "I went out bicycling one afternoon and, suddenly, as I was riding along a country road, I realized that I no longer loved Alys". He immediately went home and told her about his unexpected discovery.

I can't imagine anyone writing this who wasn't a mathematician. (I know a lot of mathematicians). As Tom Stoppard comments in The Real Thing : "He's cycling along, and what happens? He falls off the bike? No, he realizes he no longer loves his wife!"

I was goin ...more

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Jun 15, 2015 Emilian Kasemi marked it as to-read

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.
I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy – ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought i
Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.
I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy – ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness – that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it, finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what – at last – I have found.
With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.
Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a hated burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.
This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me. ...more

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Dec 04, 2013 umberto rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: memoir

Some 45 years ago whenever I saw this formidable memoir by one of the great thinkers, philosophers, mathematicians, etc. in the 20th century I thought I would never finish reading it due to its presumably complex narrations as well as highly academic terms used normally by those world famous intellectuals everywhere. However, in 2002 something called fortune (or fate?) dictated to change my conviction when I came across this oldish, brownish paperback at the UQ flea market one morning and I deci ...more

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Jul 25, 2007 Kenghis Khan rated it 5 of 5 stars

One may hypothesize that all works of philosophy are in essence works of self-reflection. From blatant examples such as Augustine's "Confessions" to more subtle parts of Descartes' "Meditations," philosophers have often used their own experiences to help us understand the world we live in. In this sense, we can contrast to the former works the works of philosophers such as Aristotle or Heidegger who shy away from using the first person and deal with subject matters not only strictly of interest One may hypothesize that all works of philosophy are in essence works of self-reflection. From blatant examples such as Augustine's "Confessions" to more subtle parts of Descartes' "Meditations," philosophers have often used their own experiences to help us understand the world we live in. In this sense, we can contrast to the former works the works of philosophers such as Aristotle or Heidegger who shy away from using the first person and deal with subject matters not only strictly of interest to the writer, but which seek to gain popular understanding. Bertrand Russell is a curious mixture of the two approaches. His committment to objectivity and to rigorous thought that is arguably impossible without a certain degree of "common ground" frequently seems to overshadow his own subjectivist foundations in which he approaches the questions of philosophy. In what is perhaps the most powerful two pages of the book, at the introduction, Russell outlines three primary principles that have motivitated him to do what he did in life. In a sense, then, the autobiography provides the reader with comforting answers as to why anybody would wish to live such an amazing life. In this sense, it is perhaps Russell's most self-reflective work of philosophy. The book is entertaining, the stories enjoyable, and the message deeply profound: how Russell came to appreciate the fields that he was interested in, and how he found the principles that guided his life. He had also been kind enough, in the edition I read, to include copies of letters of correspondence and pages from his diary as a youth. While this may have been motivated by a less-than-humble desire to provide future scholars with primary source material to study himself, they are themselves works of philosophy, and many of the doubts about life Russell struggled with as a youth strike a chord in all of us. Indeed, Russell's Autobiography is an entertaining and personally illuminating approach to one of the most fundamental philosophical questions of how one's life is to be lead. ...more

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Oct 29, 2009 Eric_W rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: biography-memoir , philosophy

The Founding Fathers obviously placed a high value on happiness or they wouldn't have insisted on pursuit of it as a basic right in a major American document. Bertrand Russell, who already as an adolescent was trying to reconcile the meaning of life and the role of reason, adopted a Millian (if that's a word) premise to "act in a manner. . . to be most likely to produce the greatest happiness, considering both the intensity of the happiness and the number of people made happy." In The Autobiogra The Founding Fathers obviously placed a high value on happiness or they wouldn't have insisted on pursuit of it as a basic right in a major American document. Bertrand Russell, who already as an adolescent was trying to reconcile the meaning of life and the role of reason, adopted a Millian (if that's a word) premise to "act in a manner. . . to be most likely to produce the greatest happiness, considering both the intensity of the happiness and the number of people made happy." In The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell, volume I, Conscience, he argued, was too dependent upon education, a product a evolution and education, and therefore "it is an absurdity to follow that rather than reason." The inherited part "can only be principles leading to the preservation of the species" and the education part of conscience is derived from the same imparted wisdom that "made Bloody Mary burn the Protestants." Russell was good friends with Alfred Whitehead who was a teacher and mentor to him, although in later years to parted on aspects of their philosophies. He perceived Whitehead as having the qualities of a perfect teacher: "He took a interest in those with whom he had to deal and knew both their strong and weak points. He would elicit from a pupil the best of which a pupil was capable. He was never repressive, or sarcastic or any of those things that inferior teachers like to be. I think that in all the abler young men with whom he came in contact, he inspired, as he did in me, a very real and lasting affection."

Russell's comments about people he met and his friends were amusingly perspicacious. "My impression of the old families of Philadelphia Quakers was that they had all the effeteness of a small aristocracy. Old misers of ninety would sit brooding over their hoard while their children of sixty or seventy waited for their death with what patience they could command. Various forms of mental disorder appeared common. Those who must be accounted sane were apt to be very stupid."

It was while in the midst of writing his great Principia Mathematica that he had a revelation that was to alter his life. Alfred Whitehead's wife was in severe pain from a heart condition and while attending to her he came to the following reflections: "the loneliness of the human soul in unendurable; nothing can penetrate it except the highest intensity of the sort that religious teachers have preached; whatever does not spring from this motive is harmful, or at best war is wrong, that a public school [the English public school is the equivalent of an American private school:] is abominable, that the use of force is to be deprecated, and that in relations one should penetrate to the core of loneliness in each person and speak to that. . . . cared only for exactness and analysis, I found myself filled with semi-mystical feelings about beauty, with an intense interest in children, and with some desire almost as profound as that of the Buddha to find some philosophy which should make life endurable." ...more

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Dec 12, 2012 Sam Schulman rated it 5 of 5 stars

One of the funniest books I've ever read - partially intended by Russell, partly unintentional, which makes it even funnier. Don't wait until you are 60 as I did or 90 as my father did to read it (although the dirty bits are wonderfully enjoyable to a 90-year-old man, should you ever be at a loss for what to read to him. Particularly funny is Russell's upbringing (by the much-younger wife of his grandfather, the former PM, and his aunt - who are masters of guilt-induction, sexual guilt and rando One of the funniest books I've ever read - partially intended by Russell, partly unintentional, which makes it even funnier. Don't wait until you are 60 as I did or 90 as my father did to read it (although the dirty bits are wonderfully enjoyable to a 90-year-old man, should you ever be at a loss for what to read to him. Particularly funny is Russell's upbringing (by the much-younger wife of his grandfather, the former PM, and his aunt - who are masters of guilt-induction, sexual guilt and random rules of conduct (Don't you know that you should never talk about any fractions except halves and quarters? - it is pedantic!" she told little Bertrand. "How like his father!: she said, turning to my Aunt Maude.") Russell slyly boasts about his sexcapades, apologizes for criticizing his first wife ("my self-righteousness at the time seems to me in retrospect to be repulsive") before sharing at length with the reader the "substantial grounds for my criticisms." There are wonderful encounters with Santayana (who wanted to get his underwear from his Paris apartment before the Boche destroyed the city, and with it the Parisians and a ms Santayana had been working on for 10 years ("I care more for my underwear"), of Joseph Conrad, the man whom BR most admired and thought resembled him (hah!), DH Lawrence (BH gives a vivid picture of what it was like to be the object of DHL's sudden crazes), Whitehead, Ottoline Morrell, TS Eliot (he hints at an affaire between himself and Vivienne), Wittgenstein, and many others. He comes across as sound on Lenin and Bolshevism ("a new aristocracy even more cruel than the old one, but in this case the artistocrats are a group of Americanized Russian Jews"), explains his opposition to WWI, support for WWII and suggestion that the US nuke the USSR in 1948.
Most of all it shows how a brilliant man can waste the vast majority of his life trying to persaude others to change their minds about politics.
...more

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Mar 30, 2013 ♥ Ibrahim ♥ rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: biography , british-literature , philosophy

Reading this book one can't help but feel that education is everything and that as much as you put in the eduction of a boy, it will come back to you. People in Russell's days were well-educated. I love how he talked about his aunts and grandmother and the kind of books they liked to read. These women were by no means baby machines but they are the reason we have a genius like Russell and his kind today. It is such wonderful to see his sense of humor and his witty comments here and there. He lea ...more

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Sep 07, 2014 Abubakar rated it 4 of 5 stars

I read this book because I wanted to find the impetus behind the passions of such a relentless activist for Peace and Logic. Russell is one of my favorite philosophers. And this books fairly describes the values he held dear, and the events that effected his intellectual development. I find it hard to write about him. He is very raw and open about himself, just the way he is about everything else. the chapters about his early life are most charming and very engrossing. This is a fine book for an ...more

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May 16, 2015 Rosa Ramôa rated it 5 of 5 stars

"O problema do mundo é que os estúpidos estão super confiantes e os inteligentes estão cheios de dúvidas".
(Bertrand Russell)

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Mar 31, 2010 Matthew Conroy rated it 5 of 5 stars

The first two volumes are the best, very good reading.

The third volume is quite a bit dryer, and doesn't have the personal details that make the other volumes so interesting. Still, I recommend the whole thing very highly.

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Apr 03, 2011 P.J. Sullivan rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: autobiography

This is one of the great autobiographies of all time, for its clarity and candor, for its amazing scope, for its cast of interesting characters. Russell was driven by logic. He could see the illogic, the absurdities, in the way the world operated. His refusal to compromise with those absurdities made him conspicuous, made him a great man. He believed that human suffering could best be relieved by putting the world on a logical, a rational, basis. But the world did not understand, still does not ...more

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Apr 21, 2009 Mary rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction

Following each section in this book are some of the correspondence from the time period. I found the letters to be the most challenging part of the book. On one hand, I understand that they are an important component. And some of the letters truly illuminated what had been described by Russell earlier in the text. I especially enjoyed the letters to Russell from his grandmother and aunt. Masters of the guilt trip they are! On the other hand, some of them weren't interesting to me at all. Midway ...more

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Sep 07, 2015 Zari added it

Shelves: biography

"Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a great ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.

I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy - ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sough "Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a great ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.

I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy - ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness--that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what--at last--I have found.

With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.

Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.

This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me. " ...more

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Sep 11, 2014 Stephen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: biography

All three volumes fascinating reading though I think first was best. I can't begin to follow his mathematical philosophy but you don't have to to enjoy the autobiog, which does not go into the latter. This man's role in stopping atmospheric testing puts him in my pantheon.

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Jan 20, 2008 jeremy rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoir-bio

russell's prologue is exquisite, near perfect. a remarkable man.

"three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind...."

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Apr 08, 2007 TK Keanini rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: philosophy , heroes

Great thinker and it really captures a very different time in society.

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Sep 22, 2014 Ollie rated it 2 of 5 stars

Few human beings have had the kind of life Bertrand Russell has had. He was a thinker, a philosopher, a mathematician, a progressive and an activist. As a journalist he has lived through some of the most important eras in human history and actually engaged with it to the point where he almost can be called proto-Gonzo. His writings are loaded with cleverness, witticism, and charm, and are relevant nearly a century after they were written. And to top it all off, he lived to be almost 100, so it w Few human beings have had the kind of life Bertrand Russell has had. He was a thinker, a philosopher, a mathematician, a progressive and an activist. As a journalist he has lived through some of the most important eras in human history and actually engaged with it to the point where he almost can be called proto-Gonzo. His writings are loaded with cleverness, witticism, and charm, and are relevant nearly a century after they were written. And to top it all off, he lived to be almost 100, so it would be an understatement to say that he had a lot to write about. With that in mind, I expected Bertrand Russell’s autobiography to be the autobiography to end all autobiographies. And it might have been this unrealistically high bar which caused me to being so disappointed in this book.

It’s not that in his lengthy (over 700 pages!) autobiography doesn’t offer an interesting look back at the milestones of his life, it’s that such precious little of the book is actually devoted to this. In fact, it’s safe to say that Bertrand Russell’s autobiography consists mostly of letters he both wrote and received. Spanning the majority of his life (this autobiography was finished when Russell was at the ripe old age of 97–a year before he passed), this book is, as expected, full of anecdotes about his life and career. And indeed, it’s here that the book shines, as Russell is able to look back on these events mostly in a funny and entertaining way. The bad news is that at the end of each chapter we are inundated with page after page of letters (even those which other people wrote to him), which often outnumber the “autobiographical” section of the chapters themselves. These letters, on the other hand, are mostly boring as they focus on the minutia of his daily life, or are from individuals we don’t know or remember, or are about accounts we don’t care about. So it’s not that Bertrand Russell’s written autobiography is a boring book, it’s that he has supplemented the different eras of his life with tedious letters.

In addition, it’s interesting to notice what Russell has chosen to extrapolate on and talk about in depth, as there is very little here about his brother and grandmother’s deaths and his relationships after his first wife Alys: in short, anyone with whom he has had a strong personal relationship.

So after putting in so much effort, the reader feels cheated because we are dealing with the stories of one of history’s most interesting human beings. Russell’s Autobiography does indeed have shining moments, but unfortunately with the sheer amount of filler they come too few and far in between.
...more

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Jul 16, 2012 Owen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: autobiography , politics , england

Not only was Bertrand Russell a gentleman, he was a peer. In some cases this can be seen as stepping out of the frying pan into the fire. In Lord Russell's case, it just may have helped.

Apart from stating the obvious, that Bertrand Russell needs or should need little introduction, it is as well to say that his long life was spent, as far as it was public, in defending or promoting causes. Having gone to prison at a young age because he could not stomach the Kaiser's war (at least not quietly), h Not only was Bertrand Russell a gentleman, he was a peer. In some cases this can be seen as stepping out of the frying pan into the fire. In Lord Russell's case, it just may have helped.

Apart from stating the obvious, that Bertrand Russell needs or should need little introduction, it is as well to say that his long life was spent, as far as it was public, in defending or promoting causes. Having gone to prison at a young age because he could not stomach the Kaiser's war (at least not quietly), he later returned, if only briefly, way off in the 1960s, defending the cause of CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) in Trafalgar Square. That's quite a bit of history to cover, all from the same angle. It seems he never regretted the stand he took, nor altered his views substantially over the decades. He either had to condemn war openly and publicly, or condemn man privately, which meant taking his own life, something he says he thought about very seriously and decided against. For all his faults, whatever they were, it's quite hard to fault him!

The autobiography allows us to accompany him through the bulk of the twentieth century and see the development of various movements worldwide, in which he was always involved, at least at the level of the heart, but often actively. He uses letters a good deal in this text, and these throw light on that outer world which was so often pulling in an almost opposite direction. Yet he had his friends and in the bad years when he was a political outcast, a pariah of sorts in his own college (Trinity College, Cambridge) there were always those who could see his point of view and respect it. He was a stubborn man and his stubbornness allowed him to hang on for much longer than most people would have bothered. In fact, it seems that he remained true to himself right to the end, and in the end, that is what gave him life. An interesting book about a lively intelligence, sometimes brilliantly displayed. ...more

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Mar 23, 2013 Louisa rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: autobiography-memoir , non-fiction

On the surface, one would think that Bertrand Russell had everything a man could ever wish for. He was one of the most influential men of the 20th century. He had a brilliant mind and wrote books on a wide range of topics including mathematics, philosophy, education, politics, physics, China, bolshevism, theory of knowledge, religion, and atheism. He lectured in a number of universities and was awarded the Nobel Prize of Literature in 1950. Among his acquaintances were Joseph Conrad, Albert Eins ...more

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Sep 30, 2013 Yifan (Evan) Xu (Hsu) rated it 5 of 5 stars

For most readers, Russell is well known for his work "A history of western philosophy". But the work that brought him the earliest fame is "Principia mathematica". In fact, Russell had extended his insights into many spectrum, which would be later revealed.

Intention to summarize the autobiography is fruitless, because Russell wrote it in such a plain language that the book's main themes are quite elusive. The word "plain" is a euphemism for "unsophisticated language but scattered thesis". None ...more

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Jan 15, 2015 Alex Milledge rated it 3 of 5 stars

I thought the book was underwhelming compared to his other books. When I read Bertrand Russell, I was an emotional atheist and found his works like Why am I not a Christian to be a very compelling read, but as the years have passed and my atheism has waned into agnostic-seeking-defense-of-a-justified belief in God, I found the book wanting me to summon the spirit of Bertrand Russell and ask him questions as to what he actually believes.

One of the things that made the book a cold read at times w ...more

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Oct 08, 2010 Julie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to Julie by: my grandmother

Shelves: autobiography , my-grandmothers

"Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man."
— Bertrand Russell

"Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth -- more than ruin -- more even than death.... Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid. Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the ...more

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Jul 26, 2012 Tim rated it 5 of 5 stars

I first found solace in Russell at the tender age of sixteen back in 1992. His ability to write luicid, candid reflections - upon what is all too often repressed - I found particularly refreshing. I was swayed by his atheism for a good six years after which I converted to a form of mystic christianity.

My only dislike is the inclusion of letters from personages that are not mentioned in the main text. This leaves one wondering who they were and what was their significance for Russell. Also he se ...more

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Nov 02, 2014 MehrNush is currently reading it

Your own life, naturally, is a paper life, as you say, a life in which experience comes through books, not directly. For this disease, more books are not the remedy. Only real life is the remedy - but that is hard to get. Real life means a life in some kind of intimate relation to other human beings — Hodder's life of passion has no reality at all. Or again, real life means the experience in one's own person of the emotions which make the material of religion and poetry. The road to it is the sa ...more

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Apr 17, 2014 Franco rated it 4 of 5 stars

Very cool and enjoyable.
A life quest 4 truth, happiness and peace, as much as love.
Also he's been one of the few who changed more houses than me in life.

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Jun 05, 2014 Tom rated it 3 of 5 stars

It's very brief for an autobiography, and it would have been nice if he didn't include so many letters.

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Mar 24, 2015 thinkingape rated it 5 of 5 stars

One of my favorites

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Jul 26, 2012 R. rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoir-autobiography

I take issue with the Chicago Tribune's blurb advising literates to steal the thing rather than go without, but I guess it was 1951 and Americans weren't so used to hearing frank discussions of sex. There's an acid charm to Russell's writing, and his social world is inhabited by characters who would not be out of place in Gibbon, but in my opinion, literates looking for substance should stick to his philosophical writings.

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Sep 06, 2008 Franklin rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: mathematics , philosophy

Since I liked math, my mother thought to check this out of the library for me to read when I was 14 and home sick from school for a week. It was very well written and it fascinated me, kindling my interest in philosophy. In both philosophy and politics, today I would violently disagree with Russell, but then I knew little about either. Anyway, I still remember some of the more entertaining vignettes.

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Sep 16, 2012 Pippa rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: philosophy , autobiography

This was disappointing in many ways. It was thin and almost mean compared with Dora in the Tamarisk Tree. She is obviously a very minor character in his story of 'myself' and there were times I really disliked him. Of course there were many times when I did like him, and forgave him, but this was not quite the inspiration that I thought it would be.

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About Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS, was a Welsh philosopher, historian, logician, mathematician, advocate for social reform, pacifist, and prominent rationalist. Although he was usually regarded as English, as he spent the majority of his life in England, he was born in Wales, where he also died.

He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1950 "in recognition of his var ...more

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“(on A History of Western Philosophy) I was sometimes accused by reviewers of writing not a true history but a biased account of the events that I arbitrarily chose to write of. But to my mind, a man without a bias cannot write interesting history - if, indeed, such man exists.” — 16 likes

“I hate the world and almost all the people in it. I hate the Labour Congress and the journalists who send men to be slaughtered, and the fathers who feel a smug pride when their sons are killed, and even the pacifists who keep saying human nature is essentially good, in spite of all the daily proofs to the contrary. I hate the planet and the human race—I am ashamed to belong to such a species.” — 15 likes

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