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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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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
Power
Give
Still
Astonishing
Littles
Engineering
Little
Philosophical
Giving
Knowledge
Much
Science
Stills

More quotes by Bertrand Russell

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War...seems a mere madness, a collective insanity.
Bertrand Russell
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Reason is a harmonising, controlling force rather than a creative one.
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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.
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Cruel men believe in a cruel god and use their belief to excuse their cruelty. Only kindly men believe in a kindly god, and they would be kindly in any case.
Bertrand Russell
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The moral thing I should wish to say to them is very simple I should say: Love is wise - Hatred is foolish. In this world, which is getting more and more closely interconnected, we have to learn to tolerate each other.
Bertrand Russell
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The more we realize our minuteness and our impotence in the face of cosmic forces, the more amazing becomes what human beings have achieved.
Bertrand Russell
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The question of unrealityis a very important one. Misled by grammar, the great majority of those logicians who have dealt with this question have dealt with it on mistaken lines. They have regarded grammatical form as a surer guide in analysis than, in fact, it is. And they have not known what differences in grammatical form are important.
Bertrand Russell
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To write tragedy, a man must feel tragedy. To feel tragedy, a man must be aware of the world in which he lives. Not only with his mind, but with his blood and sinews.
Bertrand Russell
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And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence
Bertrand Russell
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With civilized men..., it is, I think, chiefly love of excitement which makes the populace applaud when war breaks out the emotion is exactly the same as at a football match, although the results are sometimes somewhat more serious.
Bertrand Russell
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All serious innovation is only rendered possible by some accident enabling unpopular persons to survive.
Bertrand Russell
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The satisfaction to be derived from success in a great constructive enterprise is one of the most massive that life has to offer.
Bertrand Russell
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In human relations one should penetrate to the core of loneliness in each person and speak to that.
Bertrand Russell
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Perhaps the nuclear physicists have come so near to the ultimate secrets that He thinks it time to bring their activities to a stop. And what simpler method could He devise than to let them carry their ingenuity to the point where they exterminate the human race?
Bertrand Russell
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In a logically perfect language, there will be one word and no more for every simple object, and everything that is not simple will be expressed by a combination of words, by a combination derived, of course, from the words for the simple things that enter in, one word for each simple component.
Bertrand Russell
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There is no greater reason for children to honour parents than for parents to honour children except, that while the children are young, the parents are stronger than children.
Bertrand Russell
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Although it is a gloomy view to suppose that life will die out, sometimes when I contemplate the things that people do with their lives I think it is almost a consolation
Bertrand Russell
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One who believes, as I do, that the free intellect is the chief engine of human progress, cannot but be fundamentally opposed to Bolshevism, as much as to the Church of Rome.
Bertrand Russell
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It is not my prayer and humility that you cause things to go as you wish, but by acquiring a knowledge of natural laws.
Bertrand Russell
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If you had the power to destroy the world, would you do so?
Bertrand Russell