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The first essential character [of civilization], I should say, is forethought. This, indeed, is what mainly distinguishes men from brutes and adults from children.

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
Character
Distinguishes
Firsts
Brutes
First
Mainly
Children
Essential
Men
Essentials
Indeed
Adults
Civilization
Forethought

More quotes by Bertrand Russell

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Our individual life is brief, and perhaps the whole life of mankind will be brief if measured in astronomical scale
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The essence of life is doing things for their own sakes.
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Always remember that true happiness is not in getting what you want, but wanting what you already have. He who dies with the most toys is still dead. What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.
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I did not know I loved you until I heard myself telling so, for one instance I thought, Good God, what have I said? and then I knew it was true.
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Intelligence, it might be said, has caused our troubles but it is not unintelligence that will cure them. Only more and wiser intelligence can make a happier world
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Science, by itself cannot, supply us with an ethic.
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Televison allows thousands of people to laugh at the same joke and still remain alone.
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I do not think any reasonable person can doubt that in India, China and Japan, if the knowledge of birth control existed, the birthrate would fall very rapidly
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The main thing needed to make men happy is intelligence.
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Why is propaganda so much more successful when it stirs up hatred than when it tries to stir up friendly feeling?
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Dread of disaster makes everybody act in the very way that increases the disaster.
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It is possible that mankind is on the threshold of a golden age but, if so, it will be necessary first to slay the dragon that guards the door, and this dragon is religion.
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Education ought to foster the wish for truth, not the conviction that some particular creed is the truth.
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More important than the curriculum is the question of the methods of teaching and the spirit in which the teaching is given
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It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this.
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One of the main causes of trouble in the world is dogmatic and fanatical belief in some doctrine for which there is no adequate evidence
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In attempting to understand the elements out of which mental phenomena are compounded, it is of the greatest importance to remember that from the protozoa to man there is nowhere a very wide gap either in structure or in behaviour. From this fact it is a highly probable inference that there is also nowhere a very wide mental gap.
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I consider the official Catholic attitude on divorce, birth control, and censorship exceedingly dangerous to mankind.
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Facts have to be discovered by observation, not by reasoning
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A good man will never suspect his friends of shady actions: this is part of his goodness. A good man will never be suspected by the public of using his goodness to screen villains: this is part of his utility
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