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One of the most painful circumstances of recent advances in science is that each one makes us know less than we thought we did

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
Circumstances
Less
Science
Makes
Thought
Advances
Recent
Painful

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My sad conviction is that people can only agree about what they're not really interested in.
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Physics is mathematical not because we know so much about the physical world, but because we know so little it is only its mathematical properties that we can discover.
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It is a natural propensity to attribute misfortune to someone's malignity.
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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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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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As soon as we abandon our own reason, and are content to rely upon authority, there is no end to our trouble. . . . No Catholic, for instance, takes seriously the text which says that a Bishop should be the husband of one wife.
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Dr. Arnold . . . the admired reformer of public schools, came across some cranks who thought it a mistake to flog boys. Anyone reading his outburst of furious indignation against this opinion will be forced to the conclusion that he enjoyed inflicting floggings.
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We have almost reached the point where praise of rationality is held to mark a man as an old fogey regrettably surviving from a bygone age.
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The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others.
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Science is what we know, and philosophy is what we don't know.
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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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We love our habits more than our income, often more than our life.
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no one ever gossips about the virtues of others
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[One] must look into hell before one has any right to speak of heaven.
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Mysticism is, in essence, little more than a certain intensity and depth of feeling in regard to what is believed about the universe.
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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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Only in thought is man a God in action and desire we are the slaves of circumstance.
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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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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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I do so hate to leave this world.
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