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The world in which we live can be understood as a result of muddle and accident but if it is the outcome of deliberate purpose, the purpose must have been that of a fiend. For my part, I find accident a less painful and more plausible hypothesis.

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
Results
Deliberate
Purpose
Outcome
Less
Accident
Religion
Outcomes
Part
Accidents
Fiend
Find
Painful
Muddle
Live
Result
Plausible
Must
Understood
Hypothesis

More quotes by Bertrand Russell

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To understand the actual world as it is, not as we should wish it to be, is the beginning of wisdom.
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A life which goes excessively against natural impulse is... likely to involve effects of strain that may be quite as bad as indulgence in forbidden impulses would have been. People who live a life which is unnatural beyond a point are likely to be filled with envy, malice and uncharitableness.
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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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Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
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In human relations one should penetrate to the core of loneliness in each person and speak to that.
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The typical Westerner wishes to be the cause of as many changes as possible in his environment the typical Chinaman wishes to enjoy as much and as delicately as possible.
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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.
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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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What the world needs is not dogma but an attitude of scientific inquiry.
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The use of force stands in need of control by a public neutral authority, in the interests of liberty no less than of justice. Within a nation, this public authority will naturally be the state in relations between nations, if the present anarchy is to cease, it will have to be some international parliament.
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If I were a medical man, I should prescribe a holiday to any patient who considered his work important.
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Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cozy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigor, and the great spaces have a splendor of their own.
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To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.
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I believe four ingredients are necessary for happiness: health, warm personal relations, sufficient means to keep you from want, and successful work.
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Through the greatness of the universe, which philosophy contemplates, the mind also is rendered great, and becomes capable of that union with the universe which constitutes its highest good.
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When all experts agree, you need to watch out.
Bertrand Russell
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No satisfaction based upon self-deception is solid.
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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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Prophets, mystics, poets, scientific discoverers are men whose lives are dominated by a vision they are essentially solitary men . . . whose thoughts and emotions are not subject to the dominion of the herd.
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I do wish I believed in the life eternal, for it makes me quite miserable to think man is merely a kind of machine endowed, unhappily for himself, with consciousness.
Bertrand Russell