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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
Persons
Rendered
Enabling
Accident
Accidents
Survive
Innovation
Serious
Possible
Unpopular

More quotes by Bertrand Russell

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I FIND IT SO DIFFICULT NOT TO HATE, WHEN I DO NOT HATE I FEEL WE FEW ARE SO LONELY IN THE WORLD
Bertrand Russell
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Beggars do not envy millionaires, though of course they will envy other beggars who are more successful.
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The doctrine (of) maintaining that the language of daily life, with words used in their ordinary meanings, suffices for philosophy . . . I find myself totally unable to accept . . . . Because it makes almost inevitable the perpetuation amongst philosophers of the muddle-headedness they have taken over from common sense.
Bertrand Russell
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Belief in a Divine mission is one of the many forms of certainty that have afflicted the human race.
Bertrand Russell
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The first dogma which I came to disbelieve was that of free will. It seemed to me that all notions of matter were determined by the laws of dynamics and could not therefore be influenced by human wills.
Bertrand Russell
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There's a Bible on that shelf there. But I keep it next to Voltaire - poison and antidote.
Bertrand Russell
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The first step in wisdom, as well as in morality, is to open the windows of the ego as wide as possible.
Bertrand Russell
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One must care about a world one will not see.
Bertrand Russell
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How much longer is the world willing to endure this spectacle of wanton cruelty?
Bertrand Russell
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One of the most painful circumstances of recent advances in science is that each one makes us know less than we thought we did
Bertrand Russell
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In detective stories . . . I alternately identify myself with the murderer and the huntsman-detective, but . . . there are those to which this vicarious outlet is too mild.
Bertrand Russell
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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.
Bertrand Russell
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Some `advanced thinkers' are of the opinion that anyone who differs from the conventional opinion must be in the right. This is a delusion if it were not, truth would be easier to come by than it is.
Bertrand Russell
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A man without a bias cannot write interesting history - if indeed such a man exists.
Bertrand Russell
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We love our habits more than our income, often more than our life.
Bertrand Russell
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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.
Bertrand Russell
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I conclude that, while it is true that science cannot decide questions of value, that is because they cannot be intellectually decided at all, and lie outside the realm of truth and falsehood. Whatever knowledge is attainable, must be attained by scientific methods and what science cannot discover, mankind cannot know.
Bertrand Russell
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Shakespeare . . . If he does not give you delight, you had better ignore him [if you can].
Bertrand Russell
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If we compare Europe with other continents, it is marked out as [another] persecuting continent.
Bertrand Russell
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What was exciting in the Victorian Age, would leave a man of franker epoch quite unmoved. The more prudes restrict the permissible degree of sexual appeal, the less is required to make such an appeal effective.
Bertrand Russell