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Something of the hermit's temper is an essential element in many forms of excellence, since it enables men to resist the lure of popularity, to pursue important work in spite of general indifference or hostility, and arrive at opinions which are opposed to prevalent errors.

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
Work
Forms
Opinions
Enables
Something
Elements
Spite
Popularity
Men
General
Excellence
Arrive
Opinion
Pursue
Resist
Hermit
Since
Errors
Temper
Prevalent
Form
Solitude
Indifference
Hermits
Many
Essential
Opposed
Lure
Important
Essentials
Element
Hostility

More quotes by Bertrand Russell

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True happiness for human beings is possible only to those who develop their godlike potentialities to the utmost.
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My own view on religion is that of Lucretius. I regard it as a disease born of fear and as a source of untold misery to the human race.
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Extreme hopes are born of extreme misery, and in such a world hopes could only be irrational.
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The key to happiness is accepting one unpleasant reality every day.
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Drunkenness is temporary suicide.
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The first step in wisdom, as well as in morality, is to open the windows of the ego as wide as possible.
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I have throughout been curious about how much we can be said to know and with what degree of certainty or doubtfulness.
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[There has been] every kind of cruelty practiced upon all sorts of people in the name of religion.
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Education, which was at first made universal in order that all might be able to read and write, has been found capable of serving quite other purposes. By instilling nonsense it unifies populations and generates collective enthusiasm.
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I do so hate to leave this world.
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Many a marriage hardly differs from prostitution, except being harder to escape from.
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I am sometimes shocked by the blasphemies of those who think themselves pious.
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Every advance in civilization has been denounced as unnatural while it was recent
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Mankind has become so much one family that we cannot insure our own prosperity except by insuring that of everyone else.
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Good nature is, of all moral qualities, the one that the world needs most, and good nature is the result of ease and security, not of a life of arduous struggle.
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There is an element of the busybody in our conception of virtue: unless a man makes himself a nuisance to a great many people, we do not think he can be an exceptionally good man.
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No opinion has ever been too errant to become a creed.
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I am compelled to fear that science will be used to promote the power of dominant groups rather than to make men happy.
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(on A History of Western Philosophy) I was sometimes accused by reviewers of writing not a true history but a biased account of the events that I arbitrarily chose to write of. But to my mind, a man without a bias cannot write interesting history - if, indeed, such man exists.
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The opinions that are held with passion are always those for which no good ground exists indeed the passion is the measure of the holders lack of rational conviction. Opinions in politics and religion are almost always held passionately.
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