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When we look at a rock what we are seeing is not the rock, but the effect of the rock upon us.

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
Rock
Rocks
Effects
Seeing
Upon
Look
Looks
Effect

More quotes by Bertrand Russell

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The place of the father in the modern suburban family is a very small one, particularly if he plays golf.
Bertrand Russell
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There is an element of the busybody in our conception of virtue: unless a man makes himself a nuisance to a great many people, we do not think he can be an exceptionally good man.
Bertrand Russell
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Moreover, the attitude that one ought to believe such and such a proposition, independently of the question whether there is evidence in its favor, is an attitude which produces hostility to evidence and causes us to close our minds to every fact that does not suit our prejudices.
Bertrand Russell
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Bolshevism is to be reckoned with Mohammedanism rather than with Christianity and Buddhism. Christianity and Buddhism are primarily personal religions, with mystical doctrines and a love of contemplation. Mohammedanism and Bolshevism are practical, social, unspiritual, concerned to win the empire of the world.
Bertrand Russell
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The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being more than Man, which is the touchstone of the highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics as surely as poetry.
Bertrand Russell
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The essence of life is doing things for their own sakes.
Bertrand Russell
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The difficulty is old, but none the less real. An omnipotent being who created a world containing evil not due to sin must Himself be at least partially evil.
Bertrand Russell
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The opinions that are held with passion are always those for which no good ground exists indeed the passion is the measure of the holders lack of rational conviction. Opinions in politics and religion are almost always held passionately.
Bertrand Russell
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I am firm YOU are obstinate HE is a pig-headed fool.
Bertrand Russell
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A widespread belief is more often likely to be foolish than sensible.
Bertrand Russell
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Whether science-and indeed civilization in general-can long survive depends upon psychology, that is to say, it depends upon what human beings desire.
Bertrand Russell
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History is valuable, to begin with, because it is true and this, though not the whole of its value, is the foundation and condition of all the rest. That all knowledge, as such, is in some degree good, would appear to be at least probable and the knowledge of every historical fact possesses this element of goodness, even if it posses no other.
Bertrand Russell
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Meantime, the world in which we exist has other aims. But it will pass away, burnt up in the fire of its own hot passions and from its ashes will spring a new and younger world, full of fresh hope, woth the light of morning in its eyes.
Bertrand Russell
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The most essential characteristic of scientific technique is that it proceeds from experiment, not from tradition.
Bertrand Russell
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A million million years gives us some time to prepare for the end . . . let us make the best of it.
Bertrand Russell
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The whiter my hair becomes, the more ready people are to believe what I say.
Bertrand Russell
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I think it would be just to say the most essential characteristic of mind is memory, using this word in its broadest sense to include every influence of past experience on present reactions.
Bertrand Russell
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Education, and the life of the mind generally, is a matter in which individual initiative is the chief thing needed the function of the state should begin and end with insistence on some kind of education, and, if possible, a kind which promotes mental individualism, not a kind which happens to conform to the prejudices of government officials.
Bertrand Russell
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... the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be.
Bertrand Russell
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Memory demands an image.
Bertrand Russell