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Clergymen almost necessarily fail in two ways as teachers of morals. They condemn acts which do no harm and they condone acts which do great harm.

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
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Necessarily
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Clergymen
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Never try to discourage thinking, for you are sure to succeed.
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It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this.
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For love of domination we must substitute equality for love of victory we must substitute justice for brutality we must substitute intelligence for competition we must substitute cooperation. We must learn to think of the human race as one family.
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Ants and savages put strangers to death.
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Dread of disaster makes everybody act in the very way that increases the disaster.
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At all times, except when a monarch could enforce his will, war has been facilitated by the fact that vigorous males, confident of victory, enjoyed it, while their females admired them for their prowess.
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The skill of the politician consists in guessing what people can be brought to think advantageous to themselves the skill of the expert consists in calculating what really is advantageous, provided people can be brought to think so.
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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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We know very little, and yet it is astonishing that we know so much, and still more astonishing that so little knowledge can give us so much power.
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It is possible that mankind is on the threshold of a golden age but, if so, it will be necessary first to slay the dragon that guards the door, and this dragon is religion.
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Answering questions is a major part of sex education. Two rules cover the ground. First, always give a truthful answer to a question secondly, regard sex knowledge as exactly like any other knowledge.
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Dogmatism and skepticism are both, in a sense, absolute philosophies one is certain of knowing, the other of not knowing. What philosophy should dissipate is certainty, whether of knowledge or ignorance.
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In his youth, Wordsworth sympathized with the French Revolution, went to France, wrote good poetry and had a natural daughter. At this period, he was a bad man. Then he became good, abandoned his daughter, adopted correct principles and wrote bad poetry.
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The man who only loves beautiful things is dreaming, whereas the man who knows absolute beauty is wide awake.
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Those who in principle oppose birth control are either incapable of arithmetic or else in favour of war, pestilence and famine as permanent features of human life.
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The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt. Even those of the intelligent who believe that they have a nostrum are too individualistic to combine with other intelligent men from whom they differ on minor points.
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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.
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I went to Salt Lake City and the Mormons tried to convert me, but when I found they forbade tea and tobacco I thought it was no religion for me.
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If the ordinary wage-earner worked four hours a day, there would be enough for everybody, and no unemployment — assuming a certain very moderate amount of sensible organization. This idea shocks the well-to-do, because they are convinced that the poor would not know how to use so much leisure.
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But I simply can't stand a view limited to this earth, I feel life is so small unless it has windows into other worlds...I like mathematics largely because it is not human.
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