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Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970) was a British philosopher, mathematician and university lecturer. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature.

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'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.

– Bertrand Russell

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

– Bertrand Russell

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A sense of duty is useful in work, but offensive in personal relations. People wish to be liked, not be endured with patient resignation.

– Bertrand Russell

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A stupid man's report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconciously translates what he hears into something he can understand.

– Bertrand Russell

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A truer image of the world, I think, is obtained by picturing things as entering into the stream of time from an eternal world outside, than from a view which regards time as the devouring tyrant of all that is.

– Bertrand Russell

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Advocates of capitalism are very apt to appeal to the sacred principles of liberty, which are embodied in one maxim: The fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the unfortunate.

– Bertrand Russell

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After so many lonely years, I know what life & love may be. Now, if I sleep, I shall sleep fulfilled.

– Bertrand Russell

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All exact science is dominated by the idea of approximation.

– Bertrand Russell

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All movements go too far.

– Bertrand Russell

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Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men although he was twice married, it never occured to him to verify this statement by examining his wives' mouths.

– Bertrand Russell

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Boredom is a vital problem for the moralist, since at least half the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it.

– Bertrand Russell

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Change is scientific, progress is ethical; change is indubitable, whereas progress is a matter of controversy.

– Bertrand Russell

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Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd.

– Bertrand Russell

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Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.

– Bertrand Russell

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Drunkenness is temporary suicide.

– Bertrand Russell

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Education, which was at first made universal in order that all might be able to read and write, has been found capable of serving quite other purposes. By instilling nonsense it unifies populations and generates collective enthusiasm.

– Bertrand Russell

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Even in civilized mankind faint traces of monogamous instincts can be perceived.

– Bertrand Russell

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Every living thing is a sort of imperialist, seeking to transform as much as possible of its environment into itself.

– Bertrand Russell

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Every man, wherever he goes, is encompassed by a cloud of comforting convictions, which move with him like flies on a summer day.

– Bertrand Russell

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Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise.

– Bertrand Russell

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Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.

– Bertrand Russell

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Fear is, I believe, a most effective tool in destroying the soul of an individual--and the soul of a people.

– Bertrand Russell

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Few people can be happy unless they hate some other person, nation, or creed.

– Bertrand Russell

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Freedom of opinion can only exist when the government thinks itself secure.

– Bertrand Russell

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Government can easily exist without laws, but law cannot exist without government.

– Bertrand Russell

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I found one day in school a boy of medium size ill-treating a smaller boy. I expostulated, but he replied 'The bigs hit me, so I hit the babies that's fair.' In these words he epitomized the history of the human race.

– Bertrand Russell

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I think we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn't wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine.

– Bertrand Russell

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I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.

– Bertrand Russell

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If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence.

– Bertrand Russell

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If all our happiness is bound up entirely in our personal circumstances it is difficult not to demand of life more than it has to give.

– Bertrand Russell

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If there were in the world today any large number of people who desired their own happiness more than they desired the unhappiness of others, we could have paradise in a few years.

– Bertrand Russell

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In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.

– Bertrand Russell

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In all things it is a good idea to hang a question mark now and then on the things we have taken for granted.

– Bertrand Russell

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In the part of this universe that we know there is great injustice, and often the good suffer, and often the wicked prosper, and one hardly knows which of those is the more annoying.

– Bertrand Russell

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Indignation is a submission of our thoughts, but not of our desires.

– Bertrand Russell

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It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this.

– Bertrand Russell

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It is a waste of energy to be angry with a man who behaves badly, just as it is to be angry with a car that won't go.

– Bertrand Russell

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It is because modern education is so seldom inspired by a great hope that it so seldom achieves great results. The wish to preserve the past rather that the hope of creating the future dominates the minds of those who control the teaching of the young.

– Bertrand Russell

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It is clear that thought is not free if the profession of certain opinions makes it impossible to earn a living.

– Bertrand Russell

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It is obvious that 'obscenity' is not a term capable of exact legal definition in the practice of the Courts, it means 'anything that shocks the magistrate.'

– Bertrand Russell

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It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly.

– Bertrand Russell

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It is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatsoever for supposing it is true.

– Bertrand Russell

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It may seem to your conceited to suppose that you can do anything important toward improving the lot of mankind. But this is a fallacy. You must believe that you can help bring about a better world. A good society is produced only by good individuals, just as truly as a majority in a presidential election is produced by the votes of single electors. Everybody can do something toward creating in his own environment kindly feelings rather than anger, reasonableness rather than hysteria, happiness rather than misery.

– Bertrand Russell

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Life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim.

– Bertrand Russell

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Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.

– Bertrand Russell

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Man needs, for his happiness, not only the enjoyment of this or that, but hope and enterprise and change.

– Bertrand Russell

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Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do.

– Bertrand Russell

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Mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true.

– Bertrand Russell

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Mathematics takes us into the region of absolute necessity, to which not only the actual word, but every possible word, must conform.

– Bertrand Russell

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Mathematics, rightly viewed, posses not only truth, but supreme beauty - a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture.

– Bertrand Russell

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Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education.

– Bertrand Russell

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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 chief glory of man.

– Bertrand Russell

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Men who are unhappy, like men who sleep badly, are always proud of the fact.

– Bertrand Russell

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Much that passes as idealism is disguised hatred or disguised love of power.

– Bertrand Russell

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Next to enjoying ourselves, the next greatest pleasure consists in preventing others from enjoying themselves, or, more generally, in the acquisition of power. Consequently those who live under the dominion of Puritanism become exceedingly desirous of power. Now love of power does far more harm than love of drink or any of the other vices against which Puritans protest. Of course, in virtuous people love of power camouflages itself as love of doing good, but this makes very little difference to its social effects. It merely means that we punish our victims for being wicked, instead of for being our enemies. In either case, tyranny and war result. Moral indignation is one of the most harmful forces in the modern world, the more so as it can always be diverted to sinister uses by those who control propaganda.

– Bertrand Russell

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No matter how eloquently a dog may bark, he cannot tell you that his parents were poor, but honest.

– Bertrand Russell

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No one gossips about other people's secret virtues.

– Bertrand Russell

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Not to be absolutely certain is, I think, one of the essential things in rationality.

– Bertrand Russell

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Nothing of importance is ever achieved without discipline. I feel myself sometimes not wholly in sympathy with some modern educational theorists, because I think that they underestimate the part that discipline plays. But the discipline you have in your life should be one determined by your own desires and your own needs, not put upon you by society or authority.

– Bertrand Russell

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Obscenity is what happens to shock some elderly and ignorant magistrate.

– Bertrand Russell

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Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.

– Bertrand Russell

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One of the chief obstacles to intelligence is credulity, and credulity could be enormously diminished by instructions as to the prevalent forms of mendacity. Credulity is a greater evil in the present day than it ever was before, because, owing to the growth of education, it is much easier than it used to be to spread misinformation, and, owing to democracy, the spread of misinformation is more important than in former times to the holders of power.

– Bertrand Russell

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One of the signs of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important.

– Bertrand Russell

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One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important.

– Bertrand Russell

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One should as a rule respect public opinion in so far as is necessary to avoid starvation and to keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny, and is likely to interfere with happiness in all kinds of ways.

– Bertrand Russell

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Order, unity and continuity are human inventions just as truly as catalogues and encyclopedias.

– Bertrand Russell

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

– Bertrand Russell

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Our instinctive emotions are those that we have inherited from a much more dangerous world, and contain, therefore, a larger portion of fear than they should.

– Bertrand Russell

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Passive acceptance of the teacher's wisdom is easy to most boys and girls. It involves no effort of independent thought, and seems rational because the teacher knows more than his pupils it is moreover the way to win the favour of the teacher unless he is a very exceptional man. Yet the habit of passive acceptance is a disastrous one in later life. It causes man to seek and to accept a leader, and to accept as a leader whoever is established in that position.

– Bertrand Russell

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Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.

– Bertrand Russell

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Patriots always talk of dying for their country and never of killing for their country.

– Bertrand Russell

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Real life is, to most men, a long second-best, a perpetual compromise between the ideal and the possible but the world of pure reason knows no compromise, no practical limitations, no barrier to the creative activity.

– Bertrand Russell

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Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines.

– Bertrand Russell

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Religion may in most of its forms be defined as the belief that the gods are on the side of the Government.

– Bertrand Russell

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Religions, which condemn the pleasures of sense, drive men to seek the pleasures of power. Throughout history power has been the vice of the ascetic.

– Bertrand Russell

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Science may set limits to knowledge, but should not set limits to imagination.

– Bertrand Russell

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Sin is geographical.

– Bertrand Russell

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So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.

– Bertrand Russell

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The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.

– Bertrand Russell

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The fundamental defect of fathers is that they want their children to be a credit to them.

– Bertrand Russell

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The good life is one inspired by life and guided by knowledge.

– Bertrand Russell

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The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy - I mean that if you are happy you will be good.

– Bertrand Russell

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The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution.

– Bertrand Russell

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The happiness that is genuinely satisfying is accompanied by the fullest exercise of our faculties and the fullest realization of the world in which we live.

– Bertrand Russell

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The infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists - that is why they invented hell.

– Bertrand Russell

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The main thing needed to make men happy is intelligence.

– Bertrand Russell

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The main things which seem to me important on their own account, and not merely as means to other things, are knowledge, art, instinctive happiness, and relations of frendship or affection.

– Bertrand Russell

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The mind is a strange machine which can combine the materials offered to it in the most astonishing ways.

– Bertrand Russell

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The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way.

– Bertrand Russell

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The only thing that will redeem mankind is cooperation.

– Bertrand Russell

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The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others.

– Bertrand Russell

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The place of the father in the modern suburban family is a very small one, particularly if he plays golf.

– Bertrand Russell

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The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it.

– Bertrand Russell

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The practical objection to Puritanism, as to every form of fanaticism, is that it singles out certain evils as so much worse than others that they must be suppressed at all costs. The fanatic fails to recognise that the suppression of a real evil, if carried out too drastically, produces other evils which are even greater.

– Bertrand Russell

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The secret of happiness is this: Let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather that hostile.

– Bertrand Russell

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The thing that I should wish to obtain from money would be leisure with security.

– Bertrand Russell

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The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.

– Bertrand Russell

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The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.

– Bertrand Russell

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The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being more than Man, which is the touchstone of the highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics as surely as in poetry.

– Bertrand Russell

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The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.

– Bertrand Russell

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The wise man thinks about his troubles only when there is some purpose in doing so; at other times he thinks about others things.

– Bertrand Russell

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The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.

– Bertrand Russell

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There are two motives for reading a book: one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it.

– Bertrand Russell

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There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge.

– Bertrand Russell

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There is no nonsense so errant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate governmental action.

– Bertrand Russell

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These men - ..., the politicians, ... - use their position, their knowledge, and their power of disseminating misinformation to arouse and stimulate the latent instinct for bloodshed. When they have succeeded, they say they are reluctantly forced to war by the pressure of public opinion.

– Bertrand Russell

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This is one of those views which are so absolutely absurd that only very learned men could possibly adopt them.

– Bertrand Russell

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This is patently absurd but whoever wishes to become a philosopher must learn not to be frightened by absurdities.

– Bertrand Russell

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Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, the chief glory of man.

– Bertrand Russell

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To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization, and at present very few people have reached this level.

– Bertrand Russell

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To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.

– Bertrand Russell

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To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.

– Bertrand Russell

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Too little liberty brings stagnation and too much brings chaos.

– Bertrand Russell

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War does not determine who is right - only who is left.

– Bertrand Russell

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We have, in fact, two kinds of morality side by side one which we preach but do not practice, and another which we practice but seldom preach.

– Bertrand Russell

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We know too much and feel too little. At least, we feel too little of those creative emotions from which a good life springs.

– Bertrand Russell

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We know very little, and yet it is astonishing that we know so much, and still more astonishing that so little knowledge can give us so much power.

– Bertrand Russell

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We may define a Puritan as a man who holds that certain kinds of acts, even if they have no visible bad effects upon others than the agent, are inherently sinful, and, being sinful, ought to be prevented by whatever means is most effectual - the criminal law if possible, and, if not that, then public opinion backed by economic pressure.

– Bertrand Russell

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What the world needs is not dogma but an attitude of scientific inquiry combined with a belief that the torture of millions is not desirable, whether inflicted by Stalin or by a Deity imagined in the likeness of the believer.

– Bertrand Russell

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When one admits that nothing is certain one must, I think, also admit that some things are much more nearly certain than others. It is much more nearly certain that we are assembled here tonight than it is that this or that political party is in the right. Certainly there are degrees of certainty, and one should be very careful to emphasize that fact, because otherwise one is landed in an utter skepticism, and complete skepticism would, of course, be totally barren and completely useless.

– Bertrand Russell

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Whereas in art nothing worth doing can be done without genius, in science even a very moderate capacity can contribute to a supreme achievement.

– Bertrand Russell

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