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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
People
Virtue
Makes
Busybodies
Many
Exceptionally
Great
Nuisance
Good
Conception
Men
Element
Think
Elements
Thinking
Unless

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There may be no good reasons for very many opinions that are held with passion.
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Even in civilized mankind faint traces of monogamous instinct can be perceived.
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To create a healthy philosophy you should renounce metaphysics but be a good mathematician.
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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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In a just world, there would be no possibility of 'charity'.
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All definite knowledge - so I should contend - belongs to science all dogma as to what surpasses definite knowledge belongs to theology. But between theology and science there is a No Man's Land, exposed to attack by both sides this No Man's Land is philosophy.
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I feel as if one would only discover on one's death bed what one ought to have lived for
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The method of postulating what we want has many advantages they are the same as the advantages of theft over honest toil.
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Religions, which condemn the pleasures of sense, drive men to seek the pleasures of power. Throughout history power has been the vice of the ascetic.
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Reason is a harmonising, controlling force rather than a creative one.
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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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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.
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Mysticism is, in essence, little more than a certain intensity and depth of feeling in regard to what is believed about the universe.
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Those who have never known the deep intimacy and the intense companionship of happy mutual love have missed the best thing that life has to give.
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If the ordinary wage-earner worked four hours a day, there would be enough for everybody, and no unemployment — assuming a certain very moderate amount of sensible organization. This idea shocks the well-to-do, because they are convinced that the poor would not know how to use so much leisure.
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War doesn't determine who's right, it determines who's left
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Literature is inexhaustible, with every book a homage to infinity
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What will be the good of the conquest of leisure and health, if no one remembers how to use them?
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Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise.
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When I found myself regarded as respectable, I began to wonder what sins I had committed. I must be very wicked, I thought. I began to engage in the most uncomfortable introspection.
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