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All human activity is prompted by desire.

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
Human
Humans
Prompted
Activity
Desire

More quotes by Bertrand Russell

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Plato has dramatic strength ... but is quite unaware of the strength of the argument against his position ... and allows himself to be grossly unfair in arguing against it.
Bertrand Russell
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Most of the greatest evils that man has inflicted upon man have come through people feeling quite certain about something which, in fact, was false.
Bertrand Russell
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For a good notation has a subtlety and suggestiveness which at times make it seem almost like a live teacher.
Bertrand Russell
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There are two motives for reading a book one, that you enjoy it the other, that you can boast about it.
Bertrand Russell
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William James used to preach the will-to-believe. For my part, I should wish to preach the will-to-doubt. None of our beliefs are quite true all at least have a penumbra of vagueness and error. What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.
Bertrand Russell
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Some `advanced thinkers' are of the opinion that anyone who differs from the conventional opinion must be in the right. This is a delusion if it were not, truth would be easier to come by than it is.
Bertrand Russell
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Science tells us what we can know, but what we can know is little, and if we forget how much we cannot know we become insensitive to many things of great importance.
Bertrand Russell
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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.
Bertrand Russell
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One is always a little afraid of love, but above all, one is afraid of pain or causing pain.
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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If we spent half an hour every day in silent immobility, I am convinced that we should conduct all our affairs, personal, national, and international, far more sanely than we do at present.
Bertrand Russell
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Even in civilized mankind faint traces of monogamous instinct can be perceived.
Bertrand Russell
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It is no credit to the orthodox that they do not now believe all the absurdities that were believed 150 years ago. The gradual emasculation of the Christian doctrine has been effected in spite of the most vigorous resistance, and solely as the result of the onslaughts of freethinkers.
Bertrand Russell
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[There has been] every kind of cruelty practiced upon all sorts of people in the name of religion.
Bertrand Russell
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Calculus required continuity, and continuity was supposed to require the infinitely little but nobody could discover what the infinitely little might be.
Bertrand Russell
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If the West can claim superiority in anything, it is . . . in science and scientific technique.
Bertrand Russell
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We must be skeptical even of our skepticism.
Bertrand Russell
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I am firm YOU are obstinate HE is a pig-headed fool.
Bertrand Russell
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You must believe that you can help bring about a better world.
Bertrand Russell
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Your writing is never as good as you hoped but never as bad as you feared.
Bertrand Russell