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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
Point
Contemplation
Happy
Permit
Religion
Finds
Universe
Painful
Else
Circumstances
Something
Beyond
Men
Instead
Contemplate
Wise
Contemplating

More quotes by Bertrand Russell

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If all our happiness is bound up entirely in our personal circumstances it is difficult not to demand of life more than it has to give.
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The most valuable things in life are not measured in monetary terms. The really important things are not houses and lands, stocks and bonds, automobiles and real state, but friendships, trust, confidence, empathy, mercy, love and faith.
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A European who goes to New York and Chicago sees the future... when he goes to Asia he sees the past.
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Affection cannot be created it can only be liberated.
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If you wish to be happy yourself, you must resign yourself to seeing others also happy.
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I used, when I was younger, to take my holidays walking. I would cover 25 miles a day, and when the evening came I had no need of anything to keep me from boredom, since the delight of sitting amply sufficed.
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Human life, its growth, its hopes, fears, loves, et cetera, are the result of accidents
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Joy of life... depends upon a certain spontaneity in regard to sex. Where sex is repressed, only work remains, and a gospel of work for work's sake never produced any work worth doing.
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In emancipation from the fears that beset the slave of circumstance he will experience a profound joy, and through all the vicissitudes of his outward life he will remain in the depths of his being a happy man.
Bertrand Russell
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Is a man what he seems to the astronomer, a tiny lump of impure carbon and water crawling impotently on a small and unimportant planet? Or is he what he appears to Hamlet? Is he perhaps both as once?
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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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In all the creative work that I have done, what has come first is a problem, a puzzle involving discomfort.
Bertrand Russell
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We shall say that we have acquaintance with anything of which we are directly aware, without the intermediary of any process of inference of any knowledge of truths.
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To acquire immunity to eloquence is of the utmost importance to the citizens of a democracy.
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Education, which was at first made universal in order that all might be able to read and write, has been found capable of serving quite other purposes. By instilling nonsense it unifies populations and generates collective enthusiasm.
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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.
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A smell of petroleum prevails throughout.
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Bolshevism is to be reckoned with Mohammedanism rather than with Christianity and Buddhism. Christianity and Buddhism are primarily personal religions, with mystical doctrines and a love of contemplation. Mohammedanism and Bolshevism are practical, social, unspiritual, concerned to win the empire of the world.
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The search for something permanent is one of the deepest of the instincts leading men to philosophy.
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Life is just one cup of coffee after another, and don't look for anything else.
Bertrand Russell