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It is no credit to the orthodox that they do not now believe all the absurdities that were believed 150 years ago. The gradual emasculation of the Christian doctrine has been effected in spite of the most vigorous resistance, and solely as the result of the onslaughts of freethinkers.

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
Result
Solely
Atheism
Absurdity
Emasculation
Results
Orthodox
Freethinkers
Christian
Spite
Freethinker
Believe
Resistance
Effected
Years
Doctrine
Absurdities
Believed
Gradual
Credit
Vigorous

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Punctuality is a quality the need of which is bound up with social co-operation. It has nothing to do with the relation of the soul to God, or with mystic insight, or with any of the matters with which the more elevated and spiritual moralists are concerned.
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Artists are on the average less happy than men of science.
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One of the main causes of trouble in the world is dogmatic and fanatical belief in some doctrine for which there is no adequate evidence
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Whenever one finds oneself inclined to bitterness, it is a sign of emotional failure.
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I am aware that many divines are far more marvelous than I am, and that I cannot wholly appreciate merits so far transcending my own. Nevertheless, even after making allowances under this head, I cannot but think that Omnipotence operating through all eternity might have produced something better.
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If we spent half an hour every day in silent immobility, I am convinced that we should conduct all our affairs, personal, national, and international, far more sanely than we do at present.
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Philosophy, if it cannot answer so many questions as we could wish, has at least the power of asking questions which increase the interest of the world, and show the strangeness and wonder lying just below the surface even in the commonest things of daily life.
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Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken.
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Be isolated, be ignored, be attacked, be in doubt, be frightened, but do not be silenced.
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Sir Arthur Eddington deduces religion from the fact that atoms do not obey the laws of mathematics. Sir James Jeans deduces it from the fact that they do.
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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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Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.
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Neither acquiescence in skepticism nor acquiescence in dogma is what education should produce.
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It is the things for which there is no evidence that are believed with passion.
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If you question any candid person who is no longer young, he is very likely to tell you that, having tasted life in this world, he has no wish to begin again as a new boy in another.
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I say people who feel they must have a faith or religion in order to face life are showing a kind of cowardice, which in any other sphere would be considered contemptible. But when it is in the religious sphere it is thought admirable, and I cannot admire cowardice whatever sphere it is in.
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It must not be supposed that the subjective elements are any less 'real' than the objective elements they are only less important... because they do not point to anything beyond ourselves.
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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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America... where law and custom alike are based upon the dreams of spinsters...
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In considering irregular appearances, there are certain very natural mistakes which must be avoided.
Bertrand Russell