Quote

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.

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
Remember
Opposites
Still
Already
Find
Dead
Wanted
Dies
Believe
Getting
Toys
Always
Happiness
Exact
True
Wanting
Stills
Opposite

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It is amusing to hear the modern Christian telling you how mild and rationalistic Christianity really is and ignoring the fact that all its mildness and rationalism is due to the teaching of men who in their own day were persecuted by all orthodox Christians.
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All's well that ends well which is the epitaph I should put on my tombstone if I were the last man left alive.
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Plato has dramatic strength ... but is quite unaware of the strength of the argument against his position ... and allows himself to be grossly unfair in arguing against it.
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Why is propaganda so much more successful when it stirs up hatred than when it tries to stir up friendly feeling?
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A physicist looks for causes that does not necessarily imply that there are causes everywhere. A man may look for gold without assuming that there is gold everywhere if he finds gold, well and good, if he doesn't he's had bad luck. The same is true when the physicists look for causes.
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There is no greater reason for children to honour parents than for parents to honour children except, that while the children are young, the parents are stronger than children.
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Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty-a beauty cold and austere ... yet sublimely pure and capable of stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show.
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The supreme maxim in scientific philosophising is this: wherever possible, logical constructions are to be substituted for inferred entities.
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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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Philosophy, though unable to tell us with certainty what is the true answer to the doubts which it raises, is able to suggest many possibilities which enlarge our thoughts and free them from the tyranny of custom.
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Moral progress has consisted in the main of protest against cruel customs, and of attempts to enlarge human sympathy.
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Something of the hermit's temper is an essential element in many forms of excellence, since it enables men to resist the lure of popularity, to pursue important work in spite of general indifference or hostility, and arrive at opinions which are opposed to prevalent errors.
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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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Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth's surface relative to other matter second, telling other people to do so.
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I believe that when I die I shall rot, and nothing of my ego will survive. I am not young, and I love life. But I should scorn to shiver with terror at the thought of annihilation. Happiness is nonetheless true happiness because it must come to an end, nor do thought and love lose their value because they are not everlasting.
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In detective stories . . . I alternately identify myself with the murderer and the huntsman-detective, but . . . there are those to which this vicarious outlet is too mild.
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The psychology of adultery has been falsified by conventional morals, which assume, in monogamous countries, that attraction to one person cannot coexist with affection for another. Everybody knows that this is untrue.
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