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The habit of looking to the future and thinking that the whole meaning of the present lies in what it will bring forth is a pernicious one. There can be no value in the whole unless there is value in the parts.

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
Looking
Parts
Lying
Lies
Values
Meaning
Future
Habit
Whole
Value
Time
Unless
Thinking
Present
Pernicious
Bring
Forth

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It is not by delusion, however exalted, that mankind can prosper, but only by unswerving courage in the pursuit of truth.
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Physics is mathematical not because we know so much about the physical world, but because we know so little it is only its mathematical properties that we can discover.
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The first step in a fascist movement is the combination under an energetic leader of a number of men who possess more than the average share of leisure, brutality, and stupidity. The next step is to fascinate fools and muzzle the intelligent, by emotional excitement on the one hand and terrorism on the other.
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In democratic countries, the most important private organizations are economic. Unlike secret societies, they are able to exercise their terrorism without illegality, since they do not threaten to kill their enemies, but only to starve them.
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One who believes, as I do, that the free intellect is the chief engine of human progress, cannot but be fundamentally opposed to Bolshevism, as much as to the Church of Rome.
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Perhaps the nuclear physicists have come so near to the ultimate secrets that He thinks it time to bring their activities to a stop. And what simpler method could He devise than to let them carry their ingenuity to the point where they exterminate the human race?
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Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake.
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The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.
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The legacy of Greece to Western philosophy is Western philosophy.
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Dread of disaster makes everybody act in the very way that increases the disaster.
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... the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be.
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If I were a medical man, I should prescribe a holiday to any patient who considered his work important.
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Logic must no more admit a unicorn than zoology can.
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Mankind has become so much one family that we cannot insure our own prosperity except by insuring that of everyone else.
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I was told that The Chinese said they would bury me by the Western Lake and build a shrine to my memory. I have some slight regret that this did not happen, as I might have become a god, which would have been very chic for an atheist.
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There's a Bible on that shelf there. But I keep it next to Voltaire - poison and antidote.
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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?
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Most people believe in God because they have been taught from early infancy to do it, and that is the main reason. Then I think that the next most powerful reason is the wish for safety.
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Thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit.
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You are a wicked motorcar, and I shall not give you any more petrol until you go.
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