Bertrand Russel
Bertrand Russel
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRSwas a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, writer, social critic, political activist and Nobel laureate. At various points in his life he considered himself a liberal, a socialist, and a pacifist, but he also admitted that he had "never been any of these things, in any profound sense". He was born in Monmouthshire into one of the most prominent aristocratic families in the United Kingdom...
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The conscientious Radical is faced with great difficulties. He knows that he can increase his popularity by being false to his creed, and appealing to hatreds that have nothing to do with the reforms in which he believes
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The splendor of human life, I feel sure, is greater to those who are not dazzled by the divine radiance
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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.
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Love, children, and work are the great sources of fertilizing contact between the individual and the rest of the world
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Undoubtedly the desire for food has been, and still is, one of the main causes of great political events
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Hatred of enemies is easier and more intense than love of friends. But from men who are more anxious to injure opponents than to benefit the world at large no great good is to be expected.
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In all affairs, love, religion, politics, or business, it's a healthy idea, now and then, to hang a question mark on things you have long taken for granted
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The biggest cause of trouble in the world today is that the stupid people are so sure about things and the intelligent folks are so full of doubts.
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The need for prostitution arises from the fact that many men are either unmarried or away from their wives on journeys, that such men are not content to remain continent, and that in a conventionally virtuous community they do not find respectable women.
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In America everybody is of opinion that he has no social superiors, since all men are equal, but he does not admit that he has no social inferiors.
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Drunkenness is temporary suicide: the happiness that it brings is merely negative, a momentary cessation of unhappiness
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To teach how to live without certainty, and yet without, being paralyzed by hesitation, is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy in our age can do for those who study it
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The whole conception of God is a conception derived from the ancient Oriental despotisms.
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The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way. Persecution is used in theology, not in arithmetic.