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So long as there is death there will be sorrow, and so long as there is sorrow it can be no part of the duty of human beings to increase its amount, in spite of the fact that a few rare spirits know how to transmute it.

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
Part
Sorrow
Human
Beings
Humans
Duty
Long
Amount
Transmute
Fact
Spirits
Death
Rare
Facts
Spite
Spirit
Increase

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All the important human advances that we know of since historical times began have been due to individuals of whom the majority faced virulent public opposition.
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Measures of sterilization should, in my opinion, be very definitely confined to persons who are mentally defective
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Change is scientific progress is ethical change is indubitable, whereas progress is a matter of controversy.
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Philosophy seems to me on the whole a rather hopeless business.
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An Honest politician will not be tolerated by a democracy unless he is very stupid ... because only a very stupid man can honestly share the prejudices of more than half the nation.
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You may, if you are an old-fashioned schoolmaster, wish to consider yourself full of universal benevolence and at the same time derive great pleasure from caning boys. In order to reconcile these two desires you have to persuade yourself that caning
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A life which goes excessively against natural impulse is... likely to involve effects of strain that may be quite as bad as indulgence in forbidden impulses would have been. People who live a life which is unnatural beyond a point are likely to be filled with envy, malice and uncharitableness.
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The law of causality, I believe, like much that passes muster among philosophers, is a relic of a bygone age, surviving, like the monarchy, only because it is erroneously supposed to do no harm.
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Calculus required continuity, and continuity was supposed to require the infinitely little but nobody could discover what the infinitely little might be.
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To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization, and at present very few people have reached this level.
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Upon hearing via Littlewood an exposition on the theory of relativity: To think I have spent my life on absolute muck.
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To the young I should offer two maxims: Don't accept superficial solutions of difficult problems. It is better to do a little good than much harm. I should not offer anything more specific every young person should decide on his or her own credo.
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The human animal, like others, is adapted to a certain amount of struggle for life [and] the mere absence of effort from his life removes an essential ingredient of happiness. [. . .] He forgets that to be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.
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One of the most powerful of all our passions is the desire to be admired and respected.
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Perhaps the nuclear physicists have come so near to the ultimate secrets that He thinks it time to bring their activities to a stop. And what simpler method could He devise than to let them carry their ingenuity to the point where they exterminate the human race?
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Ignore fact and reason, live entirely in the world of your own fantastic and myth-producing passions do this whole-heartedly and with conviction, and you will become one of the prophets of your age.
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When the journey from means to end is not too long, the means themselves are enjoyed if the end is ardently desired.
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I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.
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