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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.

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
Thought
Religious
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Feel
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Admirable
Must
Whatever
Sphere
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Faces
Cowardice
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Life
Order
Considered
People
Cannot
Admire

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As soon as we abandon our own reason, and are content to rely upon authority, there is no end to our troubles.
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Mankind is divided into two classes: those who, being artificial, praise nature, and those who, being natural, praise art.
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I do not think any reasonable person can doubt that in India, China and Japan, if the knowledge of birth control existed, the birthrate would fall very rapidly
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Ethical metaphysics is fundamentally an attempt, however disguised, to give legislative force to our own wishes.
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Sir Arthur Eddington deduces religion from the fact that atoms do not obey the laws of mathematics. Sir James Jeans deduces it from the fact that they do.
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I am paid by the word, so I always write the shortest words possible.
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The secret to happiness is to face the fact that the world is horrible.
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If we were all given by magic the power to read each other's thoughts, I suppose the first effect would be to dissolve all friendships.
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None but a coward dares to boast that he has never known fear.
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Only six need be attempted.
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I have throughout been curious about how much we can be said to know and with what degree of certainty or doubtfulness.
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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.
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Physics, owing to the simplicity of its subject matter, has reached a higher state of development than any other science.
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Gradually, by selective breeding, the congenital differences between rulers and ruled will increase until they become almost different species. A revolt of the plebs would become as unthinkable as an organized insurrection of sheep against the practice of eating mutton.
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It is entirely clear that there is only one way in which great wars can be permanently prevented, and that is the establishment of an international government with a monopoly of serious armed force.
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Broadly speaking, we are in the middle of a race between human skill as a means and human folly as an end.
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Machines have altered our way of life, but not our instincts. Consequently, there is maladjustment.
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Through the greatness of the universe, which philosophy contemplates, the mind also is rendered great, and becomes capable of that union with the universe which constitutes its highest good.
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Love cannot exists as a duty to tell a child that it ought to love its parents and its brother and sisters is utterly useless, if not worse.
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One of the most interesting and harmful delusions to which men and nations can be subjected is that of imagining themselves special instruments of the Divine Will.
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