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Fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves.

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
Doubt
Skepticism
Skeptic
Certain
Wiser
Doubted
Always
Paradox
Fanaticism
Fools
Fooled
Libertarian
Fanatics
Certainty
Foolishness
Foolish
Libertarianism
Fool
Skeptical

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I am allowed to use plain English because everybody knows that I could use mathematical logic if I chose.
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In a just world, there would be no possibility of 'charity'.
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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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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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The secrets to happiness include enterprise, exploration of one's interests and the overcoming of obstacles.
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The examination system, and the fact that instruction is treated mainly as a training for a livelihood, leads the young to regard knowledge from a purely utilitarian point of view as the road to money, not as the gateway to wisdom.
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Religion is based, I think, primarily and mainly upon fear.
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One of the most interesting and harmful delusions to which men and nations can be subjected is that of imagining themselves special instruments of the Divine Will.
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One must expect a war between U.S.A. and U.S.S.R. which will begin with the total destruction of London. I think the war will last 30 years, and leave a world without civilised people, from which everything will have to build afresh - a process taking (say) 500 years.
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Broadly speaking, we are in the middle of a race between human skill as a means and human folly as an end.
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In a logically perfect language, there will be one word and no more for every simple object, and everything that is not simple will be expressed by a combination of words, by a combination derived, of course, from the words for the simple things that enter in, one word for each simple component.
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I used, when I was younger, to take my holidays walking. I would cover 25 miles a day, and when the evening came I had no need of anything to keep me from boredom, since the delight of sitting amply sufficed.
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Why repeat the old errors, if there are so many new errors to commit?
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Real life is, to most men, a long second best, a perpetual compromise between the ideal and the possible.
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Mankind has become so much one family that we cannot insure our own prosperity except by insuring that of everyone else.
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Always remember that true happiness is not in getting what you want, but wanting what you already have. He who dies with the most toys is still dead. What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.
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When it was first proposed to establish laboratories at Cambridge, Todhunter, the mathematician, objected that it was unnecessary for students to see experiments performed, since the results could be vouched for by their teachers, all of them of the highest character, and many of them clergymen of the Church of England.
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