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We all have a tendency to think that the world must conform to our prejudices. The opposite view involves some effort of thought, and most people would die sooner than think in fact they do so.

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
Must
Opposites
Prejudices
Would
View
Conform
Think
Views
Involves
Thinking
Effort
Tendency
World
Dies
Sooner
People
Fact
Tendencies
Facts
Opposite
Thought
Prejudice

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When we perceive any object of a familiar kind, much of what appears subjectively to be immediately given is really derived from past experience.
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The examination system, and the fact that instruction is treated mainly as a training for a livelihood, leads the young to regard knowledge from a purely utilitarian point of view as the road to money, not as the gateway to wisdom.
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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.
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Literature is inexhaustible, with every book a homage to infinity
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It appeared to me that the dignity of which human existence is capable is not attainable by devotion to the mechanism of life , and that unless contemplation of eternal things is preserved, mankind will become no better than well-fed pigs.
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I am paid by the word, so I always write the shortest words possible.
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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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There are two motives for reading a book one, that you enjoy it the other, that you can boast about it.
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Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.
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There is no reason to suppose that the world had a beginning at all. The idea that things must have a beginning is really due to the poverty of our thoughts.
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Stupidity and unconscious bias often work more damage than venality.
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A man of Seville is shaved by the Barber of Seville if and only if the man does not shave himself. Does the barber shave himself?
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Hatred of enemies is easier and more intense than love of friends. But from men who are more anxious to injure opponents than to benefit the world at large no great good is to be expected.
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Public opinion is always more tyrannical towards those who obviously fear it than towards those who feel indifferent to it.
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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.
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We must be skeptical even of our skepticism.
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It is not by delusion, however exalted, that mankind can prosper, but only by unswerving courage in the pursuit of truth.
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The pursuit of knowledge is, I think, mainly actuated by love of power. And so are all advances in scientific technique.
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