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The wise man will be as happy as circumstances permit, and if he finds the contemplation of the universe painful beyond a point, he will contemplate something else instead.

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
Universe
Painful
Else
Circumstances
Something
Beyond
Men
Instead
Contemplate
Wise
Contemplating
Point
Contemplation
Happy
Permit
Religion
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More quotes by Bertrand Russell

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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.
Bertrand Russell
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With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway about the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.
Bertrand Russell
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Americans need rest, but do not know it.
Bertrand Russell
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One should as a rule respect public opinion in so far as is necessary to avoid starvation and to keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny.
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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Dogma demands authority, rather than intelligent thought, as the source of opinion it requires persecution of heretics and hostility to unbelievers it asks of its disciples that they should inhibit natural kindliness in favor of systematic hatred.
Bertrand Russell
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Next to enjoying ourselves, the next greatest pleasure consists in preventing others from enjoying themselves, or, more generally, in the acquisition of power.
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 in the nature of imperialism that citizens of the imperial power are always among the last to know-or care-about circumstances in the colonies.
Bertrand Russell
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The slave is doomed to worship time and fate and death, because they are greater than anything he finds in himself, and because all his thoughts are of things which they devour.
Bertrand Russell
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That Plato's Republic should have been admired, on its political side, by decent people, is perhaps the most astonishing example of literary snobbery in all history.
Bertrand Russell
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Whenever one finds oneself inclined to bitterness, it is a sign of emotional failure.
Bertrand Russell
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The supreme maxim in scientific philosophising is this: wherever possible, logical constructions are to be substituted for inferred entities.
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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There will still be things that machines cannot do. They will not produce great art or great literature or great philosophy they will not be able to discover the secret springs of happiness in the human heart they will know nothing of love and friendship.
Bertrand Russell
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To fear love is to fear life.
Bertrand Russell
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It is not my prayer and humility that you cause things to go as you wish, but by acquiring a knowledge of natural laws.
Bertrand Russell
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... the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be.
Bertrand Russell
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The teacher, like the artist, the philosopher, and the man of letters, can only perform his work adequately if he feels himself to be an individual directed by an inner creative impulse, not dominated and fettered by an outside authority.
Bertrand Russell
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Conquer the world by intelligence, and not merely by being slavishly subdued by the terror that comes from it.
Bertrand Russell