Bertrand Russell Quotes and Sayings - Page 1
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“Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.”
-- Bertrand RussellSource : Eugénie de Guérin (1866). “Letters”, p.144
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“The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.”
-- Bertrand Russell -
“There is no need to worry about mere size. We do not necessarily respect a fat man more than a thin man. Sir Isaac Newton was very much smaller than a hippopotamus, but we do not on that account value him less.”
-- Bertrand Russell -
“Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.”
-- Bertrand Russell -
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“The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd.”
-- Bertrand RussellSource : Marriage and Morals ch. 5 (1929)
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“We are faced with the paradoxical fact that education has become one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of thought.”
-- Bertrand RussellSource : Bertrand Russell, Richard A. Rempel, Beryl Haslam (2000). “Uncertain Paths to Freedom: Russia and China, 1919-22”, p.356, Psychology Press
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“You must believe that you can help bring about a better world.”
-- Bertrand Russell -
“Common sense, however it tries, cannot avoid being surprised from time to time.”
-- Bertrand Russell -
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“Drunkeness is temporary suicide: the happiness that it brings is merely negative, a momentary cessation of unhappiness.”
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“All human activity is prompted by desire.”
-- Bertrand Russell -
“No great achievement is possible without persistent work.”
-- Bertrand Russell -
“To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.”
-- Bertrand Russell#Inspirational Quotes #Motivational Quotes #Happiness Quotes
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“War does not determine who is right - only who is left.”
-- Bertrand Russell -
“Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth - more than ruin, more even than death. Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habits; thought is anarchic and lawless, indifferent to authority, careless of the well-tried wisdom of the ages. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid ... Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man.”
-- Bertrand Russell -
“So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.”
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“Not to be absolutely certain is, I think, one of the essential things in rationality.”
-- Bertrand Russell -
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“Love cannot exists as a duty; to tell a child that it ought to love its parents and its brother and sisters is utterly useless, if not worse.”
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“The observer, when he seems to himself to be observing a stone, is really, if physics is to be believed, observing the effects of the stone upon himself.”
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“The widespread interest in gossip is inspired, not by a love of knowledge but by malice: no one gossips about other people's secret virtues, but only about their secret vices. Accordingly most gossip is untrue, but care is taken not to verify it. Our neighbour's sins, like the consolations of religion, are so agreeable that we do not stop to scrutinise the evidence closely.”
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“Science may set limits to knowledge, but should not set limits to imagination.”
-- Bertrand Russell -
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“Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education.”
-- Bertrand RussellSource : Bertrand Russell (2013). “History of Western Philosophy: Collectors Edition”, p.578, Routledge
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“Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.”
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“Love as a relation between men and women was ruined by the desire to make sure of the legitimacy of children.”
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“I believe myself that romantic love is the source of the most intense delights that life has to offer. In the relation of a man and woman who love each other with passion and imagination and tenderness, there is something of inestimable value, to be ignorant of which is a great misfortune to any human being.”
-- Bertrand Russell -
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“A hallucination is a fact, not an error; what is erroneous is a judgment based upon it.”
-- Bertrand Russell -
“The secret of happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile.”
-- Bertrand Russell -
“An atheist, like a Christian, holds that we can know whether or not there is a God. The Christian holds that we can know there is a God; the atheist, that we can know there is not. The Agnostic suspends judgment, saying that there are not sufficient grounds either for affirmation or for denial. At the same time, an Agnostic may hold that the existence of God, though not impossible, is very improbable; he may even hold it so improbable that it is not worth considering in practice. In that case, he is not far removed from atheism.”
-- Bertrand Russell -
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“Religions, which condemn the pleasures of sense, drive men to seek the pleasures of power. Throughout history power has been the vice of the ascetic.”
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“Dogma demands authority, rather than intelligent thought, as the source of opinion; it requires persecution of heretics and hostility to unbelievers; it asks of its disciples that they should inhibit natural kindliness in favor of systematic hatred.”
-- Bertrand RussellSource : Bertrand Russell, John G. Slater, Peter Köllner (1997). “Last Philosophical Testament: 1943-68”, p.403, Psychology Press
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