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Cruel men believe in a cruel god and use their belief to excuse their cruelty. Only kindly men believe in a kindly god, and they would be kindly in any case.

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
Atheism
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Kindly
Use
Cruel
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More quotes by Bertrand Russell

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Unless you assume a God, the question of life's purpose is meaningless.
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The skill of the politician consists in guessing what people can be brought to think advantageous to themselves the skill of the expert consists in calculating what really is advantageous, provided people can be brought to think so.
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My whole religion is this: do every duty, and expect no reward for it, either here or hereafter.
Bertrand Russell
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To the young I should offer two maxims: Don't accept superficial solutions of difficult problems. It is better to do a little good than much harm. I should not offer anything more specific every young person should decide on his or her own credo.
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There is in Aristotle an almost complete absence of what may be called benevolence or philanthropy. The sufferings of mankind . . . there is no evidence that they cause him unhappiness except when the sufferers happen to be his friends.
Bertrand Russell
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To write tragedy, a man must feel tragedy. To feel tragedy, a man must be aware of the world in which he lives. Not only with his mind, but with his blood and sinews.
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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Philosophy seems to me on the whole a rather hopeless business.
Bertrand Russell
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The man who has fed the chicken every day throughout its life at last wrings its neck instead, showing that more refined views as to the uniformity of nature would have been useful to the chicken.
Bertrand Russell
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If a Black Death could be spread throughout the world once in every generation survivors could procreate freely without making the world too full.
Bertrand Russell
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In adolescence, I hated life and was continually on the verge of suicide, from which, however, I was restrained by the desire to know more mathematics. Now, on the contrary, I enjoy life I might almost say that with every year that passes I enjoy it more.
Bertrand Russell
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Contempt for happiness is usually contempt for other people's happiness, and is an elegant disguise for hatred of the human race.
Bertrand Russell
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It appeared to me that the dignity of which human existence is capable is not attainable by devotion to the mechanism of life , and that unless contemplation of eternal things is preserved, mankind will become no better than well-fed pigs.
Bertrand Russell
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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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The more we realize our minuteness and our impotence in the face of cosmic forces, the more amazing becomes what human beings have achieved.
Bertrand Russell
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No man treats a motorcar as foolishly as he treats another human being. When the car will not go, he does not attribute its annoying behavior to sin he does not say, 'You are a wicked motorcar, and I shall not give you any more petrol until you go.' He attempts to find out what is wrong and to set it right.
Bertrand Russell
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Shakespeare . . . If he does not give you delight, you had better ignore him [if you can].
Bertrand Russell
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What the world needs is not dogma but an attitude of scientific inquiry.
Bertrand Russell
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You could live without the opera singer, but not without the services of the baker. On this ground you might say that the baker performs a greater service but no lover of music would agree.
Bertrand Russell
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No satisfaction based upon self-deception is solid, and however unpleasant the truth may be, it is better to face it once and for all, to get used to it, and to proceed to build your life in accordance with it.
Bertrand Russell