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There is an element of the busybody in our conception of virtue: unless a man makes himself a nuisance to a great many people, we do not think he can be an exceptionally good man.
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
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More quotes by Bertrand Russell
Reason is a harmonising, controlling force rather than a creative one.
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Advocates of capitalism are very apt to appeal to the sacred principles of liberty, which are embodied in one maxim: The fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the unfortunate.
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The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.
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To create a healthy philosophy you should renounce metaphysics but be a good mathematician.
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[Regarding] the convention that clergymen are more virtuous than other men. Any average selection of mankind, set apart and told that it excels the rest in virtue, must tend to sink below the average.
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Unless you assume a God, the question of life's purpose is meaningless.
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I feel life is so small unless it has windows into other worlds.
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To a modern mind, it is difficult to feel enthusiastic about a virtuous life if nothing is going to be achieved by it.
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Right conduct can never, except by some rare accident, be promoted by ignorance or hindered by knowledge.
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You may, if you are an old-fashioned schoolmaster, wish to consider yourself full of universal benevolence and at the same time derive great pleasure from caning boys. In order to reconcile these two desires you have to persuade yourself that caning
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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.
Bertrand Russell
The essence of education is that it is a change effected in the organism to satisfy the operator.
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Children, after being limbs of Satan in traditional theology and mystically illuminated angels in the minds of educational reformers, have reverted to being little devils not theological demons inspired by the evil one, but scientific Freudian abominations inspired by the unconscious.
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There are two motives for reading a book one, that you enjoy it the other, that you can boast about it.
Bertrand Russell
To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.
Bertrand Russell
The psychology of adultery has been falsified by conventional morals, which assume, in monogamous countries, that attraction to one person cannot coexist with affection for another. Everybody knows that this is untrue.
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There are certain things that our age needs. It needs, above all, courageous hope and the impulse to creativeness.
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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 trouble. . . . No Catholic, for instance, takes seriously the text which says that a Bishop should be the husband of one wife.
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What has human happiness to do with morals? The object of morals is not to make people happy.
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War grows out of ordinary human nature.
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