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All serious innovation is only rendered possible by some accident enabling unpopular persons to survive.

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
Survive
Innovation
Serious
Possible
Unpopular
Persons
Rendered
Enabling
Accident
Accidents

More quotes by Bertrand Russell

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[There has been] every kind of cruelty practiced upon all sorts of people in the name of religion.
Bertrand Russell
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I do not think that the real reason why people accept religion has anything to do with argumentation. They accept religion on emotional grounds.
Bertrand Russell
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The great majority of men and women, in ordinary times, pass through life without ever contemplating or criticising, as a whole, either their own conditions or those of the world at large.
Bertrand Russell
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Why is propaganda so much more successful when it stirs up hatred than when it tries to stir up friendly feeling?
Bertrand Russell
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To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.
Bertrand Russell
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Nine-tenths of the activities of a modern Government are harmful therefore the worse they are performed, the better.
Bertrand Russell
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It is possible that mankind is on the threshold of a golden age but, if so, it will be necessary first to slay the dragon that guards the door, and this dragon is religion.
Bertrand Russell
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Even if we could be certain that one of the world's religions were perfectly true, given the sheer number of conflicting faiths on offer, every believer should expect damnation purely as a matter of probability.
Bertrand Russell
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Science can teach us, and I think our hearts can teach us, no longer to look around for imaginary supporters, no longer to invent allies in the sky, but rather to look to our own efforts here below to make the world a fit place to live.
Bertrand Russell
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I want to say, in all seriousness, that a great deal of harm is being done in the modern world by belief in the virtuousness of WORK, and that the road to happiness and prosperity lies in the organised diminution of work.
Bertrand Russell
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Ignore fact and reason, live entirely in the world of your own fantastic and myth-producing passions do this whole-heartedly and with conviction, and you will become one of the prophets of your age.
Bertrand Russell
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The best practical advice I can give to the present generation is to practice the virtue which the Christians call love.
Bertrand Russell
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No man treats a motorcar as foolishly as he treats another human being. When the car will not go, he does not attribute its annoying behavior to sin he does not say, 'You are a wicked motorcar, and I shall not give you any more petrol until you go.' He attempts to find out what is wrong and to set it right.
Bertrand Russell
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Do not feel certain of anything.
Bertrand Russell
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There are certain things that our age needs. It needs, above all, courageous hope and the impulse to creativeness.
Bertrand Russell
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God and Satan alike are essentially human figures, the one a projection of ourselves, the other of our enemies.
Bertrand Russell
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3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is a paradox as is a paradox why the number 1 is not prime if it has no other divisors besides himself.
Bertrand Russell
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The first essential character [of civilization], I should say, is forethought. This, indeed, is what mainly distinguishes men from brutes and adults from children.
Bertrand Russell
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No man is liberated from fear who dare not see his place in the world as it is no man can achieve the greatness of which he is capable until he has allowed himself to see his own littleness.
Bertrand Russell
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When we have told how things behave when they are electrified, and under what circumstances they are electrified, we have told all there is to know
Bertrand Russell