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The desire to understand the world and the desire to reform it are the two great engines of progress, without which human society would stand still or retrogress.

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
World
Two
Reform
Stills
Progress
Still
Stand
Human
Justice
Humans
Existence
Without
Society
Great
Desire
Coexistence
Would
Understand
Engines

More quotes by Bertrand Russell

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When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your husband or your children, endeavor to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.
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If the State does not acquire supremacy over [vast private] enterprises, it becomes their puppet, and they become the real State.
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What the world needs is not dogma but an attitude of scientific inquiry.
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My own view on religion is . . . It helped in early days to fix the calendar, and . . . to chronicle eclipses . . . These two services I am prepared to acknowledge.
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Next to worry probably one of the most potent causes of unhappiness is envy.
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There lies before us, if we choose, continual progress in happiness, knowledge and wisdom. Shall we instead choose death, because we cannot forget our quarrels? I appeal as a human being to human beings remember your humanity, and forget the rest.
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The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution.
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On the one hand, philosophy is to keep us thinking about things that we may come to know, and on the other hand to keep us modestly aware of how much that seems like knowledge isn't knowledge
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A smell of petroleum prevails throughout.
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We love our habits more than our income, often more than our life.
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I feel as if one would only discover on one's death bed what one ought to have lived for
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There is no excuse for deceiving children. And when, as must happen in conventional families, they find that their parents have lied, they lose confidence in them and feel justified in lying to them.
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Every man, wherever he goes, is encompassed by a cloud of comforting convictions, which move with him like flies on a summer day.
Bertrand Russell
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There are three ways of securing a society that shall be stable as regards population. The first is that of birth control, the second that of infanticide or really destructive wars, and the third that of general misery except for a powerful minority.
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For some reason which I have failed to understand, many people like the system [scientific totalitarianism] when it is Russian but disliked the very same system when it was German. I am compelled to think that this is due to the power of labels these people like whatever is labelled ‘Left’ without examining whether the label has any justification.
Bertrand Russell
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Although this may seem a paradox, all exact science is based on the idea of approximation. If a man tells you he knows a thing exactly, then you can be safe in inferring that you are speaking to an inexact man.
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Broadly speaking, we are in the middle of a race between human skill as a means and human folly as an end.
Bertrand Russell
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We all have a tendency to think that the world must conform to our prejudices. The opposite view involves some effort of thought, and most people would die sooner than think in fact they do so.
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Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise, for only a fool will think that is happiness.
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The governors of the world believe, and have always believed, that virtue can only be taught by teaching falsehood, and that any man who knew the truth would be wicked. I disbelieve this, absolutely and entirely. I believe that love of truth is the basis of all real virtue, and that virtues based upon lies can only do harm.
Bertrand Russell