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Education ought to foster the wish for truth, not the conviction that some particular creed is the truth.

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
Conviction
Ought
Particular
Education
Politics
Wish
Foster
Truth
Creed
Creeds

More quotes by Bertrand Russell

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The first step in a fascist movement is the combination under an energetic leader of a number of men who possess more than the average share of leisure, brutality, and stupidity. The next step is to fascinate fools and muzzle the intelligent, by emotional excitement on the one hand and terrorism on the other.
Bertrand Russell
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Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake.
Bertrand Russell
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3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is a paradox as is a paradox why the number 1 is not prime if it has no other divisors besides himself.
Bertrand Russell
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Children, after being limbs of Satan in traditional theology and mystically illuminated angels in the minds of educational reformers, have reverted to being little devils not theological demons inspired by the evil one, but scientific Freudian abominations inspired by the unconscious.
Bertrand Russell
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I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy – ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of that joy. ... I have sought it, finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined.
Bertrand Russell
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Advocates of capitalism are very apt to appeal to the sacred principles of liberty, which are embodied in one maxim: The fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the unfortunate.
Bertrand Russell
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From India to Spain, the brilliant civilization of Islam flourished. What was lost to christendom at this time was not lost to civilization, but quite the contrary.
Bertrand Russell
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For a good notation has a subtlety and suggestiveness which at times make it seem almost like a live teacher.
Bertrand Russell
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The man who is unhappy will, as a rule, adopt an unhappy creed, while the man who is happy will adopt a happy creed each may attribute his happiness or unhappiness to his beliefs, while the real causation is the other way round.
Bertrand Russell
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I do not think that the real reason why people accept religion has anything to do with argumentation. They accept religion on emotional grounds.
Bertrand Russell
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And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence
Bertrand Russell
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Love cannot exists as a duty to tell a child that it ought to love its parents and its brother and sisters is utterly useless, if not worse.
Bertrand Russell
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A priori Logical propositions are such as can be known a priori without study of the actual world.
Bertrand Russell
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Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives' mouths.
Bertrand Russell
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We have almost reached the point where praise of rationality is held to mark a man as an old fogey regrettably surviving from a bygone age.
Bertrand Russell
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A good world needs knowledge, kindliness, and courage it does not need a regretful hankering after the past or a fettering of the free intelligence by the words uttered long ago by ignorant men.
Bertrand Russell
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Bad philosophers may have a certain influence good philosophers, never.
Bertrand Russell
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The purpose of education is to teach a defense against eloquence.
Bertrand Russell
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The doctrine (of) maintaining that the language of daily life, with words used in their ordinary meanings, suffices for philosophy . . . I find myself totally unable to accept . . . . Because it makes almost inevitable the perpetuation amongst philosophers of the muddle-headedness they have taken over from common sense.
Bertrand Russell
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Nine-tenths of the activities of a modern Government are harmful therefore the worse they are performed, the better.
Bertrand Russell