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One of the painful things about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision.

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
Doubt
Indecision
Imagination
Stupidity
Understanding
Certainty
Feel
Painful
Feels
Evolution
Things
Filled
Time
Ignorance
Stupid

More quotes by Bertrand Russell

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Meantime, the world in which we exist has other aims. But it will pass away, burnt up in the fire of its own hot passions and from its ashes will spring a new and younger world, full of fresh hope, woth the light of morning in its eyes.
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Freedom of opinion can only exist when the government thinks itself secure.
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Cynicism such as one finds very frequently among the most highly educated young men and women of the West, results from the combination of comfort and powerlessness.
Bertrand Russell
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Fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves.
Bertrand Russell
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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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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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Curious learning not only makes unpleasant things less unpleasant but also makes pleasant things more pleasant.
Bertrand Russell
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The megalomaniac differs from the narcissist by the fact that he wishes to be powerful rather than charming, and seeks to be feared rather than loved. To this type belong many lunatics and most of the great men of history.
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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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But I simply can't stand a view limited to this earth, I feel life is so small unless it has windows into other worlds...I like mathematics largely because it is not human.
Bertrand Russell
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Machines deprive us of two things which are certainly important ingredients of human happiness, namely, spontaneity and variety.
Bertrand Russell
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I suggest to young professors that their first work should be written in a jargon only to be understood by the erudite few. With that behind them, they can ever after say what they have to say in a language 'understand of the people.'
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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It is only through imagination that men become aware of what the world might be without it, ‘progress’ would become mechanical and trivial.
Bertrand Russell
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Patriotism which has the quality of intoxication is a danger not only to its native land but to the world, and My country never wrong is an even more dangerous maxim than My country, right or wrong.
Bertrand Russell
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Arithmetic must be discovered in just the same sense in which Columbus discovered the West Indies, and we no more create numbers than he created the Indians.
Bertrand Russell
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My own belief is that in most ages and in most places obscure psychological forces led men to adopt systems involving quite unnecessary cruelty, and that this is still the case among the most civilized races at the present day.
Bertrand Russell
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Moral indignation is one of the most harmful forces in the modern world, the more so as it can always be diverted to sinister uses by those who control propaganda.
Bertrand Russell
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How much good it would do if one could exterminate the human race.
Bertrand Russell
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It is because modern education is so seldom inspired by a great hope that it so seldom achieves great results. The wish to preserve the past rather that the hope of creatingfuture dominates the minds of those who control the teaching of the young.
Bertrand Russell