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Philosophers, for the most part, are constitutionally timid, and dislike the unexpected. Few of them would be genuinely happy as pirates or burglars. Accordingly they invent systems which make the future calculable, at least in its main outlines.

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
Least
Philosophers
Constitutionally
Happy
Invent
Burglars
Future
Dislike
Pirates
Part
Unexpected
Timid
Make
Systems
Accordingly
Would
Philosopher
Pirate
Main
Outlines
Philosophy
Genuinely
Calculable

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Dogma demands authority, rather than intelligent thought, as the source of opinion it requires persecution of heretics and hostility to unbelievers it asks of its disciples that they should inhibit natural kindliness in favor of systematic hatred.
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We shall say that we have acquaintance with anything of which we are directly aware, without the intermediary of any process of inference of any knowledge of truths.
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Not to be absolutely certain is, I think, one of the essential things in rationality.
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This, however, is a passing nightmare in time the earth will become again incapable of supporting life, and peace will return.
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The demand for certainty is one which is natural to man, but is nevertheless an intellectual vice. If you take your children for a picnic on a doubtful day, they will demand a dogmatic answer as to whether it will be fine or wet, and be disappointed in you when you cannot be sure.
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The best life is the one in which the creative impulses play the largest part and the possessive impulses the smallest.
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I suggest to young professors that their first work should be written in a jargon only to be understood by the erudite few. With that behind them, they can ever after say what they have to say in a language 'understand of the people.'
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The taboo against nakedness is an obstacle to a decent attitude on the subject of sex.
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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.
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Look at me. Look at me is one of the fundamental desires of human heart.
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If a law were passed giving six months to every writer of a first book, only the good ones would do it.
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The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution.
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The more we realize our minuteness and our impotence in the face of cosmic forces, the more amazing becomes what human beings have achieved.
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Freedom of opinion can only exist when the government thinks itself secure.
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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.
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Change is one thing, progress is another.
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If everything must have a cause, then God must have a cause. If there can be anything without a cause, it may just as well be the world as God, so that there cannot be any validity in that argument... The idea that things must have a beginning is really due to the poverty of our imagination.
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I do so hate to leave this world.
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Fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves.
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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.
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