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A widespread belief is more often likely to be foolish than sensible.

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
Sensible
Foolish
Likely
Stupid
Belief
Often
Widespread

More quotes by Bertrand Russell

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Descartes, the father of modern philosophy ... would never-so he assures us-have been led to construct his philosophy if he had had only one teacher, for then he would have believed what he had been told but, finding that his professors disagreed with each other, he was forced to conclude that no existing doctrine was certain.
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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The essence of good manners consists in making it clear that one has no wish to hurt. When it is clearly necessary to hurt, it must be done in such a way as to make it evident that the necessity is felt to be regrettable.
Bertrand Russell
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Never try to discourage thinking, for you are sure to succeed.
Bertrand Russell
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St. Paul introduced an entirely novel view of marriage, that it existed primarily to prevent the sin of fornication. It is just as if one were to maintain that the sole reason for baking bread is to prevent people from stealing cake.
Bertrand Russell
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I believe that when I die I shall rot, and nothing of my ego will survive. I am not young, and I love life. But I should scorn to shiver with terror at the thought of annihilation. Happiness is nonetheless true happiness because it must come to an end, nor do thought and love lose their value because they are not everlasting.
Bertrand Russell
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The time has come, or is about to come, when only large-scale civil disobedience, which should be nonviolent, can save the populations from the universal death which their governments are preparing for them.
Bertrand Russell
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Machines have altered our way of life, but not our instincts. Consequently, there is maladjustment.
Bertrand Russell
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It is not my prayer and humility that you cause things to go as you wish, but by acquiring a knowledge of natural laws.
Bertrand Russell
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Human life, its growth, its hopes, fears, loves, et cetera, are the result of accidents
Bertrand Russell
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The moral thing I should wish to say to them is very simple I should say: Love is wise - Hatred is foolish. In this world, which is getting more and more closely interconnected, we have to learn to tolerate each other.
Bertrand Russell
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One who believes, as I do, that the free intellect is the chief engine of human progress, cannot but be fundamentally opposed to Bolshevism, as much as to the Church of Rome.
Bertrand Russell
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You are a wicked motorcar, and I shall not give you any more petrol until you go.
Bertrand Russell
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The main thing needed to make men happy is intelligence.
Bertrand Russell
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Your writing is never as good as you hoped but never as bad as you feared.
Bertrand Russell
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Aristotle and Plato considered Greeks so innately superior to barbarians that slavery is justified so long as the master is Greek and the slave barbarian.
Bertrand Russell
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The wise man will be as happy as circumstances permit, and if he finds the contemplation of the universe painful beyond a point, he will contemplate something else instead.
Bertrand Russell
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At the age of eleven, I began Euclid, with my brother as my tutor. This was one of the great events of my life, as dazzling as first love. I had not imagined there was anything so delicious in the world. From that moment until I was thirty-eight, mathematics was my chief interest and my chief source of happiness.
Bertrand Russell
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Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, Thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought is great and swift and free.
Bertrand Russell
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True happiness for human beings is possible only to those who develop their godlike potentialities to the utmost.
Bertrand Russell