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A world full of happiness is not beyond human power to create the obstacles imposed by inanimate nature are not insuperable. The real obstacles lie in the heart of man, and the cure for these is a firm hope, informed and fortified by thought.

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
Men
Hope
Cures
World
Nature
Obstacles
Thought
Firm
Insuperable
Power
Beyond
Fortified
Human
Full
Inanimate
Humans
Create
Imposed
Real
Lying
Informed
Heart
Happiness
Cure

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My sad conviction is that people can only agree about what they're not really interested in.
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Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.
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History is valuable, to begin with, because it is true and this, though not the whole of its value, is the foundation and condition of all the rest. That all knowledge, as such, is in some degree good, would appear to be at least probable and the knowledge of every historical fact possesses this element of goodness, even if it posses no other.
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3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is a paradox as is a paradox why the number 1 is not prime if it has no other divisors besides himself.
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Inferences of Science and Common Sense differ from those of deductive logic and mathematics in a very important respect, namely, when the premises are true and the reasoning correct, the conclusion is only probable.
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A marriage is likely to be called happy if neither party ever expected to get much happiness out of it.
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The difficulty is old, but none the less real. An omnipotent being who created a world containing evil not due to sin must Himself be at least partially evil.
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It is not known why the Lord made the human body as he did, since one might suppose that omnipotence could have made it such as would not have shocked the nice people.
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The first essential character [of civilization], I should say, is forethought. This, indeed, is what mainly distinguishes men from brutes and adults from children.
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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.
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[One] must look into hell before one has any right to speak of heaven.
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If you had the power to destroy the world, would you do so?
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Literature is inexhaustible, with every book a homage to infinity
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There may be no good reasons for very many opinions that are held with passion.
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The newspapers at one time said that I was dead but after carefully examining the evidence I came to the conclusion that this statement was false.
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Even in civilized mankind faint traces of monogamous instinct can be perceived.
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It is a natural propensity to attribute misfortune to someone's malignity.
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The world in which we live can be understood as a result of muddle and accident but if it is the outcome of deliberate purpose, the purpose must have been that of a fiend. For my part, I find accident a less painful and more plausible hypothesis.
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[There has been] every kind of cruelty practiced upon all sorts of people in the name of religion.
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Those who advocate common usage in philosophy sometimes speak in a manner that suggests the mystique of the 'common man.'
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