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Extreme hopes are born of extreme misery, and in such a world hopes could only be irrational.

Bertrand Russell

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Bertrand Russell
Age: 97 †
Born: 1872
Born: May 18
Died: 1970
Died: February 2
Analytic Philosopher
Autobiographer
Epistemologist
Essayist
Journalist
Logician
Mathematician
Metaphysician
Peace Activist
Philosopher
Tryleg
Bertrand Arthur William Russell
Russell
Bertrand Russell
3rd Earl Russell
Bertrand Russell
Earl Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell
3rd Earl Russell
World
Irrational
Hopes
Extreme
Extremes
Misery
Hope
Born

More quotes by Bertrand Russell

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To think I have spent my life on absolute muck.
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, and our politicians take advantage of this prejudice by pretending to be even more stupid than nature has made them.
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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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I think that there is far too much work done in the world, that immense harm is caused by the belief that work is virtuous, and that what needs to be preached in modern industrial countries is quite different from what always has been preached.
Bertrand Russell
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I say people who feel they must have a faith or religion in order to face life are showing a kind of cowardice, which in any other sphere would be considered contemptible. But when it is in the religious sphere it is thought admirable, and I cannot admire cowardice whatever sphere it is in.
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Those who have never known the deep intimacy and the intense companionship of happy mutual love have missed the best thing that life has to give.
Bertrand Russell
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Unless you assume a God, the question of life's purpose is meaningless.
Bertrand Russell
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Calculus required continuity, and continuity was supposed to require the infinitely little but nobody could discover what the infinitely little might be.
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People who are vigorous and brutal often find war enjoyable.
Bertrand Russell
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Arithmetic must be discovered in just the same sense in which Columbus discovered the West Indies, and we no more create numbers than he created the Indians.
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The main thing needed to make men happy is intelligence.
Bertrand Russell
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I consider the official Catholic attitude on divorce, birth control, and censorship exceedingly dangerous to mankind.
Bertrand Russell
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Public opinion is always more tyrannical towards those who obviously fear it than towards those who feel indifferent to it.
Bertrand Russell
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Without civic morality communities perish without personal morality their survival has no value.
Bertrand Russell
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A good man will never suspect his friends of shady actions: this is part of his goodness. A good man will never be suspected by the public of using his goodness to screen villains: this is part of his utility
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Cynicism such as one finds very frequently among the most highly educated young men and women of the West, results from the combination of comfort and powerlessness.
Bertrand Russell
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Any pleasure that does no harm to other people is to be valued.
Bertrand Russell
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The axiomatic method has many advantages over honest work.
Bertrand Russell
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The search for something permanent is one of the deepest of the instincts leading men to philosophy.
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There is in Aristotle an almost complete absence of what may be called benevolence or philanthropy. The sufferings of mankind . . . there is no evidence that they cause him unhappiness except when the sufferers happen to be his friends.
Bertrand Russell