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Machines deprive us of two things which are certainly important ingredients of human happiness, namely, spontaneity and variety.

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
Human
Namely
Humans
Spontaneity
Important
Ingredients
Things
Variety
Machines
Certainly
Happiness
Two
Deprive

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Can a society in which thought and technique are scientific persist for a long period, as, for example, ancient Egypt persisted, or does it necessarily contain within itself forces which must bring either decay or explosion?
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Mathematics takes us into the region of absolute necessity, to which not only the actual word, but every possible word, must conform.
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The essence of life is doing things for their own sakes.
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Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, Thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought is great and swift and free.
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Indignation is a submission of our thoughts, but not of our desires.
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It seems to be the fate of idealists to obtain what they have struggled for in a form which destroys their ideals.
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Do not feel certain of anything.
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Boys and young men acquire readily the moral sentiments of their social milieu, whatever these sentiments may be.
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Science does not aim at establishing immutable truths and eternal dogmas its aim is to approach the truth by successive approximations, without claiming that at any stage final and complete accuracy has been achieved.
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The human animal, like others, is adapted to a certain amount of struggle for life [and] the mere absence of effort from his life removes an essential ingredient of happiness. [. . .] He forgets that to be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.
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The pleasure of work is open to anyone who can develop some specialised skill, provided that he can get satisfaction from the exercise of his skill without demanding universal applause.
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A sense of duty is useful in work but offensive in personal relations. People wish to be liked, not to be endured with patient resignation.
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Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken.
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Literature is inexhaustible, with every book a homage to infinity
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We are faced with the paradoxical fact that education has become one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of thought.
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Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth's surface relative to other matter second, telling other people to do so.
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Nine-tenths of the activities of a modern Government are harmful therefore the worse they are performed, the better.
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Heretical views arise when the truth is uncertain, and it is only when the truth is uncertain that censorship is invoked.
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One's work is never so bad as it appears on bad days, nor so good as it appears on good days.
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The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt. Even those of the intelligent who believe that they have a nostrum are too individualistic to combine with other intelligent men from whom they differ on minor points.
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