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In science the successors stand upon the shoulders of their predecessors where one man of supreme genius has invented a method, a thousand lesser men can apply it. ... In art nothing worth doing can be done without genius in science even a very moderate capacity can contribute to a supreme achievement.

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
Stand
Accounts
Moderate
Upon
Supreme
Lesser
Science
Achievement
Moderates
Art
Method
Contribute
Without
Capacity
Apply
Nothing
Genius
Invented
Done
Worth
Shoulders
Successors
Even
Thousand
Invention
Predecessors

More quotes by Bertrand Russell

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Even if we could be certain that one of the world's religions were perfectly true, given the sheer number of conflicting faiths on offer, every believer should expect damnation purely as a matter of probability.
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St. Paul introduced an entirely novel view of marriage, that it existed primarily to prevent the sin of fornication. It is just as if one were to maintain that the sole reason for baking bread is to prevent people from stealing cake.
Bertrand Russell
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Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, Thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought is great and swift and free.
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Change is one thing, progress is another.
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Shakespeare . . . If he does not give you delight, you had better ignore him [if you can].
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Televison allows thousands of people to laugh at the same joke and still remain alone.
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Our beliefs are, however, often contrary to fact.
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Change is scientific progress is ethical change is indubitable, whereas progress is a matter of controversy.
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Philosophy, though unable to tell us with certainty what is the true answer to the doubts which it raises, is able to suggest many possibilities which enlarge our thoughts and free them from the tyranny of custom.
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A generation educated in fearless freedom will have wider and bolder hopes than are possible to us
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Logic must no more admit a unicorn than zoology can.
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All knowledge, we feel, must be built up upon our instinctive beliefs and if these are rejected, nothing is left.
Bertrand Russell
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Philosophy, from the earliest times, has made greater claims, and achieved fewer results, than any other branch of learning.
Bertrand Russell
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Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken.
Bertrand Russell
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I have throughout been curious about how much we can be said to know and with what degree of certainty or doubtfulness.
Bertrand Russell
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It seems to us unwise to have insisted on teaching geometry to the younger Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse, in order to make him a good king, but from Plato's point of view it was essential. He was sufficiently Pythagorean to think that without mathematics no true wisdom is possible.
Bertrand Russell
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When we look at a rock what we are seeing is not the rock, but the effect of the rock upon us.
Bertrand Russell
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One of the symptoms of approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important, and that to take a holiday would bring all kinds of disaster. If I were a medical man, I should prescribe a holiday to any patient who considered his or her work important.
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Obscenity is whatever happens to shock some elderly and ignorant magistrate.
Bertrand Russell
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Religion is based, I think, primarily and mainly upon fear.
Bertrand Russell