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Stupidity and unconscious bias often work more damage than venality.

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
Bias
Damage
Unconscious
Stupidity
Often
Work
Venality

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Philosophy, if it cannot answer so many questions as we could wish, has at least the power of asking questions which increase the interest of the world, and show the strangeness and wonder lying just below the surface even in the commonest things of daily life.
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To the young I should offer two maxims: Don't accept superficial solutions of difficult problems. It is better to do a little good than much harm. I should not offer anything more specific every young person should decide on his or her own credo.
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The demand for certainty is one which is natural to man, but is nevertheless an intellectual vice. If you take your children for a picnic on a doubtful day, they will demand a dogmatic answer as to whether it will be fine or wet, and be disappointed in you when you cannot be sure.
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We are condemned to kill time, thus we die bit by bit. - Octavio Paz The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.
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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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The time has come, or is about to come, when only large-scale civil disobedience, which should be nonviolent, can save the populations from the universal death which their governments are preparing for them.
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Among human beings, the subjection of women is much more complete at a certain level of civilization than it is among savages. And the subjection is always reinforced by morality.
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If a philosophy is to bring happiness it should be inspired by kindly feelings. Marx pretended that he wanted the happiness of the proletariat what he really wanted was the unhappiness of the bourgeois.
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You may reasonably expect a man to walk a tightrope safely for ten minutes it would be unreasonable to do so without accident for two hundred years.
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Drunkenness is temporary suicide.
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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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It is obviously possible that what we call waking life may only be an unusual and persistent nightmare.
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Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd.
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Shakespeare . . . If he does not give you delight, you had better ignore him [if you can].
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So long as there is death there will be sorrow, and so long as there is sorrow it can be no part of the duty of human beings to increase its amount, in spite of the fact that a few rare spirits know how to transmute it.
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Science is what we know, and philosophy is what we don't know.
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I was told that The Chinese said they would bury me by the Western Lake and build a shrine to my memory. I have some slight regret that this did not happen, as I might have become a god, which would have been very chic for an atheist.
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Only six need be attempted.
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The man who is unhappy will, as a rule, adopt an unhappy creed, while the man who is happy will adopt a happy creed each may attribute his happiness or unhappiness to his beliefs, while the real causation is the other way round.
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When the journey from means to end is not too long, the means themselves are enjoyed if the end is ardently desired.
Bertrand Russell