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[Regarding] the convention that clergymen are more virtuous than other men. Any average selection of mankind, set apart and told that it excels the rest in virtue, must tend to sink below the average.

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
Apart
Excels
Men
Tend
Clergymen
Average
Convention
Atheism
Regarding
Mankind
Sink
Rest
Selection
Told
Conventions
Virtue
Virtuous

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The wise man will be as happy as circumstances permit, and if he finds the contemplation of the universe painful beyond a point, he will contemplate something else instead.
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The resistance to a new idea increases by the square of its importance.
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Fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves.
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There will still be things that machines cannot do. They will not produce great art or great literature or great philosophy they will not be able to discover the secret springs of happiness in the human heart they will know nothing of love and friendship.
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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.
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Ethical metaphysics is fundamentally an attempt, however disguised, to give legislative force to our own wishes.
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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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Your writing is never as good as you hoped but never as bad as you feared.
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Religions which have any very strong hold over men's actions have generally some instinctive basis.
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The taboo against nakedness is an obstacle to a decent attitude on the subject of sex.
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The satisfaction to be derived from success in a great constructive enterprise is one of the most massive that life has to offer.
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There are certain things that our age needs. It needs, above all, courageous hope and the impulse to creativeness.
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Artists are on the average less happy than men of science.
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A truer image of the world, I think, is obtained by picturing things as entering into the stream of time from an eternal world outside, than from a view which regards time as the devouring tyrant of all that is.
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