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Science seems to be at war with itself.... Naive realism leads to physics, and physics, if true, shows naive realism to be false. Therefore naive realism, if true, is false therefore it is false.

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
True
Physics
Reality
Leads
Seems
False
Therefore
Technology
War
Science
Realism
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Naive

More quotes by Bertrand Russell

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Abstract work, if one wishes to do it well, must be allowed to destroy one's humanity one raises a monument which is at the same time a tomb, in which, voluntarily, one slowly inters oneself.
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The pursuit of knowledge is, I think, mainly actuated by love of power. And so are all advances in scientific technique.
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People who are vigorous and brutal often find war enjoyable.
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Heretical views arise when the truth is uncertain, and it is only when the truth is uncertain that censorship is invoked.
Bertrand Russell
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There may be no good reasons for very many opinions that are held with passion.
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Everybody can do something toward creating in his own environment kindly feelings rather than anger, reasonableness rather than hysteria, happiness rather than misery.
Bertrand Russell
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Religions which have any very strong hold over men's actions have generally some instinctive basis.
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If the ordinary wage-earner worked four hours a day, there would be enough for everybody, and no unemployment — assuming a certain very moderate amount of sensible organization. This idea shocks the well-to-do, because they are convinced that the poor would not know how to use so much leisure.
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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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I do so hate to leave this world.
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Public opinion is always more tyrannical towards those who obviously fear it than towards those who feel indifferent to it.
Bertrand Russell
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Gradually, by selective breeding, the congenital differences between rulers and ruled will increase until they become almost different species. A revolt of the plebs would become as unthinkable as an organized insurrection of sheep against the practice of eating mutton.
Bertrand Russell
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One must expect a war between U.S.A. and U.S.S.R. which will begin with the total destruction of London. I think the war will last 30 years, and leave a world without civilised people, from which everything will have to build afresh - a process taking (say) 500 years.
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.
Bertrand Russell
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Many people when they fall in love look for a little haven of refuge from the world, where they can be sure of being admired when they are not admirable, and praised when they are not praiseworthy.
Bertrand Russell
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Science does not aim at establishing immutable truths and eternal dogmas its aim is to approach the truth by successive approximations, without claiming that at any stage final and complete accuracy has been achieved.
Bertrand Russell
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Moreover, the attitude that one ought to believe such and such a proposition, independently of the question whether there is evidence in its favor, is an attitude which produces hostility to evidence and causes us to close our minds to every fact that does not suit our prejudices.
Bertrand Russell
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If you had the power to destroy the world, would you do so?
Bertrand Russell
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A sense of duty is useful in work but offensive in personal relations. People wish to be liked, not to be endured with patient resignation.
Bertrand Russell
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To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.
Bertrand Russell