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If I were granted omnipotence, and millions of years to experiment in, I should not think Man much to boast of as the final result of all my efforts.

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
Finals
Think
Granted
Thinking
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Omnipotence
Millions
Boast
Results
Experiment
Effort
Efforts
Much
Experiments
Years
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More quotes by Bertrand Russell

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Nine-tenths of the appeal of pornography is due to the indecent feelings concerning sex which moralists inculcate in the young the other tenth is physiological, and will occur in one way or another whatever the state of the law may be.
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RELIGION: A set of beliefs held as dogmas, dominating the conduct of life, going beyond or contrary to evidence, and inculcated by methods which are emotional or authoritarian, not intellectual.
Bertrand Russell
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Those who in principle oppose birth control are either incapable of arithmetic or else in favour of war, pestilence and famine as permanent features of human life.
Bertrand Russell
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People who are vigorous and brutal often find war enjoyable.
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We all have a tendency to think that the world must conform to our prejudices. The opposite view involves some effort of thought, and most people would die sooner than think in fact they do so.
Bertrand Russell
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What men really want is not knowledge but certainty.
Bertrand Russell
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What has human happiness to do with morals? The object of morals is not to make people happy.
Bertrand Russell
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A physicist looks for causes that does not necessarily imply that there are causes everywhere. A man may look for gold without assuming that there is gold everywhere if he finds gold, well and good, if he doesn't he's had bad luck. The same is true when the physicists look for causes.
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In the part of this universe that we know there is great injustice, and often the good suffer, and often the wicked prosper, and one hardly knows which of those is the more annoying.
Bertrand Russell
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We must be sceptical even of our scepticism.
Bertrand Russell
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It would now be technically possible to unify the world, abolish war and poverty altogether, if men desired their own happiness more than the misery of their enemies.
Bertrand Russell
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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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Dread of disaster makes everybody act in the very way that increases the disaster.
Bertrand Russell
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The mind is a strange machine which can combine the materials offered to it in the most astonishing ways.
Bertrand Russell
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What the world needs is not dogma but an attitude of scientific inquiry combined with a belief that the torture of millions is not desirable, whether inflicted by Stalin or by a Deity imagined in the likeness of the believer
Bertrand Russell
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Upon hearing via Littlewood an exposition on the theory of relativity: To think I have spent my life on absolute muck.
Bertrand Russell
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I do so hate to leave this world.
Bertrand Russell
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There is no greater reason for children to honour parents than for parents to honour children except, that while the children are young, the parents are stronger than children.
Bertrand Russell
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The man who suffers from a sense of sin is suffering from a particular kind of self-love. In all this vast universe the thing that appears to him of most importance is that he himself should be virtuous. It is a grave defect in certain forms of traditional religion that they have encouraged this particular kind of self-absorption.
Bertrand Russell
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Unless you assume a God, the question of life's purpose is meaningless.
Bertrand Russell