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Although this may seem a paradox, all exact science is based on the idea of approximation. If a man tells you he knows a thing exactly, then you can be safe in inferring that you are speaking to an inexact man.
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
Men
Safe
Exact
Seem
Paradox
Idea
Math
Science
Tells
Seems
Speaking
May
Although
Inferring
Ideas
Exactly
Inexact
Thing
Based
Approximation
More quotes by Bertrand Russell
Thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit.
Bertrand Russell
Dread of disaster makes everybody act in the very way that increases the disaster. Psychologically the situation is analogous to that of people trampled to death when there is a panic in a theatre caused by a cry of `Fire!'.
Bertrand Russell
I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.
Bertrand Russell
Thee will find out in time that I have a great love of professing vile sentiments, I don't know why, unless it springs from long efforts to avoid priggery.
Bertrand Russell
Literature is inexhaustible, with every book a homage to infinity
Bertrand Russell
I conclude that, while it is true that science cannot decide questions of value, that is because they cannot be intellectually decided at all, and lie outside the realm of truth and falsehood. Whatever knowledge is attainable, must be attained by scientific methods and what science cannot discover, mankind cannot know.
Bertrand Russell
... mathematical knowledge ... is, in fact, merely verbal knowledge. 3 means 2+1, and 4 means 3+1. Hence it follows (though the proof is long) that 4 means the same as 2+2. Thus mathematical knowledge ceases to be mysterious.
Bertrand Russell
The satisfaction to be derived from success in a great constructive enterprise is one of the most massive that life has to offer.
Bertrand Russell
When it was first proposed to establish laboratories at Cambridge, Todhunter, the mathematician, objected that it was unnecessary for students to see experiments performed, since the results could be vouched for by their teachers, all of them of the highest character, and many of them clergymen of the Church of England.
Bertrand Russell
Dora and I are now married, but just as happy as we were before.
Bertrand Russell
Science seems to be at war with itself.... Naive realism leads to physics, and physics, if true, shows naive realism to be false. Therefore naive realism, if true, is false therefore it is false.
Bertrand Russell
It is amusing to hear the modern Christian telling you how mild and rationalistic Christianity really is and ignoring the fact that all its mildness and rationalism is due to the teaching of men who in their own day were persecuted by all orthodox Christians.
Bertrand Russell
Man can be stimulated by hope or driven by fear, but the hope and the fear must be vivid and immediate if they are to be effective without producing weariness.
Bertrand Russell
Drunkenness is temporary suicide.
Bertrand Russell
The difficulty is old, but none the less real. An omnipotent being who created a world containing evil not due to sin must Himself be at least partially evil.
Bertrand Russell
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
It's not what you have lost, but what you have left that counts.
Bertrand Russell
A great many worries can be diminished by realizing the unimportance of the matter which is causing anxiety.
Bertrand Russell
The newspapers at one time said that I was dead but after carefully examining the evidence I came to the conclusion that this statement was false.
Bertrand Russell
When people begin to philosophize they seem to think it necessary to make themselves artificially stupid.
Bertrand Russell