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

More quotes by Bertrand Russell

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Ants and savages put strangers to death.
Bertrand Russell
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It is because modern education is so seldom inspired by a great hope that it so seldom achieves great results. The wish to preserve the past rather that the hope of creatingfuture dominates the minds of those who control the teaching of the young.
Bertrand Russell
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The really useful education is that which follows the direction of the child's own instinctive interests, supplying knowledge for which it is seeking, not dry, detailed information wholly out of relation to its spontaneous desires.
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.
Bertrand Russell
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To acquire immunity to eloquence is of the utmost importance to the citizens of a democracy.
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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Respectability, regularity, and routine - the whole cast-iron discipline of a modern industrial society - have atrophied the artistic impulse, and imprisoned love so that it can no longer be generous and free and creative, but must be either stuffy or furtive.
Bertrand Russell
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To think I have spent my life on absolute muck.
Bertrand Russell
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To realize the unimportance of time is the gate to wisdom.
Bertrand Russell
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... the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be.
Bertrand Russell
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Unless you assume a God, the question of life's purpose is meaningless.
Bertrand Russell
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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.
Bertrand Russell
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There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge.
Bertrand Russell
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The essence of life is doing things for their own sakes.
Bertrand Russell
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Although it is a gloomy view to suppose that life will die out, sometimes when I contemplate the things that people do with their lives I think it is almost a consolation
Bertrand Russell
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To like many people spontaneously and without effort is perhaps the greatest of all sources of personal happiness.
Bertrand Russell
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Affection cannot be created it can only be liberated.
Bertrand Russell
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The question of unrealityis a very important one. Misled by grammar, the great majority of those logicians who have dealt with this question have dealt with it on mistaken lines. They have regarded grammatical form as a surer guide in analysis than, in fact, it is. And they have not known what differences in grammatical form are important.
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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Bolshevism is to be reckoned with Mohammedanism rather than with Christianity and Buddhism. Christianity and Buddhism are primarily personal religions, with mystical doctrines and a love of contemplation. Mohammedanism and Bolshevism are practical, social, unspiritual, concerned to win the empire of the world.
Bertrand Russell