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People seem good while they are oppressed, but they only wish to become oppressors in their turn: life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim.

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
Life
Turn
People
Turns
Oppressors
Rather
Oppressed
Wish
Criminal
Become
Criminals
Seems
Victim
Nothing
Competition
Good
Seem

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The happiness that is genuinely satisfying is accompanied by the fullest exercise of our faculties and the fullest realization of the world in which we live.
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Never try to discourage thinking, for you are sure to succeed.
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The pleasure of work is open to anyone who can develop some specialised skill, provided that he can get satisfaction from the exercise of his skill without demanding universal applause.
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Whenever one finds oneself inclined to bitterness, it is a sign of emotional failure.
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Cruel men believe in a cruel god and use their belief to excuse their cruelty. Only kindly men believe in a kindly god, and they would be kindly in any case.
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It seems to be the fate of idealists to obtain what they have struggled for in a form which destroys their ideals.
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Love and knowledge led upwards to the heavens.
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The taboo against nakedness is an obstacle to a decent attitude on the subject of sex.
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A drop of water is not immortal it can be resolved into oxygen and hydrogen. If, therefore, a drop of water were to maintain that it had a quality of aqueousness which would survive its dissolution we should be inclined to be skeptical. In like manner we know that the brain is not immortal.
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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.
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Philosophy, though unable to tell us with certainty what is the true answer to the doubts which it raises, is able to suggest many possibilities which enlarge our thoughts and free them from the tyranny of custom.
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Real life is, to most men, a long second best, a perpetual compromise between the ideal and the possible.
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Contempt for happiness is usually contempt for other people's happiness, and is an elegant disguise for hatred of the human race.
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In the revolt against idealism, the ambiguities of the word experience have been perceived, with the result that realists have more and more avoided the word.
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In attempting to understand the elements out of which mental phenomena are compounded, it is of the greatest importance to remember that from the protozoa to man there is nowhere a very wide gap either in structure or in behaviour. From this fact it is a highly probable inference that there is also nowhere a very wide mental gap.
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What the world needs is not dogma but an attitude of scientific inquiry.
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The experience of overcoming fear is extraordinarily delightful.
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In science the successors stand upon the shoulders of their predecessors where one man of supreme genius has invented a method, a thousand lesser men can apply it. ... In art nothing worth doing can be done without genius in science even a very moderate capacity can contribute to a supreme achievement.
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One of the symptoms of approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important, and that to take a holiday would bring all kinds of disaster. If I were a medical man, I should prescribe a holiday to any patient who considered his or her work important.
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