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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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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
Thinking
Rationality
Uncertainty
Essential
Essentials
Absolutely
Certain
Things
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More quotes by 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.
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Whatever we know without inference is mental.
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The mind is a strange machine which can combine the materials offered to it in the most astonishing ways.
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Boredom is... a vital problem for the moralist, since half the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it.
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The man who pursues happiness wisely will aim at the possession of a number of subsidiary interests in addition to those central ones upon which his life is built.
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All the conditions of happiness are realized in the life of the man of science.
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Joy of life... depends upon a certain spontaneity in regard to sex. Where sex is repressed, only work remains, and a gospel of work for work's sake never produced any work worth doing.
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Televison allows thousands of people to laugh at the same joke and still remain alone.
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All religions are both harmful and untrue.
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Remember your humanity, and forget the rest.
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Philosophy, from the earliest times, has made greater claims, and achieved fewer results, than any other branch of learning.
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My own belief is that in most ages and in most places obscure psychological forces led men to adopt systems involving quite unnecessary cruelty, and that this is still the case among the most civilized races at the present day.
Bertrand Russell
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From India to Spain, the brilliant civilization of Islam flourished. What was lost to christendom at this time was not lost to civilization, but quite the contrary.
Bertrand Russell
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Next to worry probably one of the most potent causes of unhappiness is envy.
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The late F. W. H. Myers used to tell how he asked a man at a dinner table what he thought would happen to him when he died. The man tried to ignore the question, but, on being pressed, replied: Oh well, I suppose I shall inherit eternal bliss, but I wish you wouldn't talk about such unpleasant subjects.
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[Kant] was like many people: in intellectual matters he was skeptical, but in moral matters he believed imjplicitly in the maximx that he had imbibed at his mother's knee.
Bertrand Russell
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Grasshopper always wrong in argument with chicken.
Bertrand Russell
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There lies before us, if we choose, continual progress in happiness, knowledge and wisdom. Shall we instead choose death, because we cannot forget our quarrels? I appeal as a human being to human beings remember your humanity, and forget the rest.
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Reason may be a small force, but it is constant, and works always in one direction, while the forces of unreason destroy one another in futile strife.
Bertrand Russell
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It is likely that America will be more important during the next century or two, but after that it may well be the turn of China.
Bertrand Russell