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Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Russell Quotes

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Famous Bertrand Russell Quotes

“The governors of the world believe, and have always believed, that virtue can only be taught by teaching falsehood, and that any man who knew the truth would be wicked. I disbelieve this, absolutely and entirely. I believe that love of truth is the basis of all real virtue, and that virtues based upon lies can only do harm.”

MenWorldBelieveRealWould BeLyingI BelievePeaceVirtueTeachingTaughtTruth IsBasesHarmWickedGovernorsFalsehoodAlways BelieveUbuntu
Book:The Prospects of Industrial Civilization
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“I mean by intellectual integrity the habit of deciding vexed questions in accordance with the evidence, or of leaving them undecided where the evidence is inconclusive. This virtue, though it is underestimated by almost all adherents of any system of dogma, is to my mind of the very greatest social importance and far more likely to benefit the world than Christianity or any other system of organized beliefs.”

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Book:The basic writings of Bertrand Russell, 1903-1959
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“In the higher walks of politics the same sort of thing occurs. The statesman who has gradually concentrated all power within himself ... may have had anything but a public motive... The phrases which are customary on the platform and in the Party Press have gradually come to him to seem to express truths, and he mistakes the rhetoric of partisanship for a genuine analysis of motives... He retires from the world after the world has retired from him.”

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Author:Bertrand Russell
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“There is no logical impossibility in the hypothesis that the world sprang into being five minutes ago, exactly as it then was, with a population that "remembered" a wholly unreal past. There is no logically necessary connection between events at different times; therefore nothing that is happening now or will happen in the future can disprove the hypothesis that the world began five minutes ago.”

WorldDifferentHappensPastFiveAtheismMinutesEventsHappeningsConnectionsPopulationRememberedLogicalHypothesisImpossibilityFive MinutesUnrealDifferent Times
Book:The Analysis of Mind
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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.”

WorldWinningSocialChristianityBuddhismConcernedIslamPracticalsDoctrineContemplationEmpiresMysticalBolshevism
Book:The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism
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“In regard to the past, where contemplation is not obscured by desire and the need for action, we see, more clearly than in the lives about us, the value for good and evil, of the aims men have pursued and the means they have adopted. It is good, from time to time, to view the present as already past, and to examine what elements it contains that will add to the world's store of permanent possessions, that will live and give life when we and all our generation have perished.”

MenWorldNeedsGivingMeanActionPastDesireValuesEvilViewsGenerationsElementsEthicsRegardAimAddPossessionStoresPermanentContemplationGood And EvilAdoptedPursuedOur Generation
Book:Contemplation and Action, 1902-14
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“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.”

MenWorldWellsLooksLightAgeEarthCourageHellHabitTerribleAuthorityComfortableGloryInstitutionsPrivilegeRuinsChiefsRevolutionaryDestructiveNot AfraidIndifferentMy ThoughtsPitsCarelessFear NotSubversiveFear NothingLight Of The World
Book:Why Men Fight
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“The world in which we live can be understood as a result of muddle and accident; but if it is the outcome of deliberate purpose, the purpose must have been that of a fiend. For my part, I find accident a less painful and more plausible hypothesis.”

IfsWorldHas BeensPurposeReligionResultsUnderstoodPainfulAccidentsOutcomesHypothesisDeliberatePlausibleMuddle
Book:Why I Am Not a Christian: And Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects
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“Ever since men became capable of free speculation, their actions, in innumerable important respects, have depended upon their theories as to the world and human life, as to what is good and what is evil. This is true in the present day as at any former time. To understand an age or a nation, we must understand its philosophy, and to understand its philosophy we must ourselves be in some degree philosophers. There is here a reciprocal causation: the circumstances of men s lives do much to determine their philosophy, but, conversely, their philosophy does much to determine their circumstances.”

MenWorldHumansDoeImportantPhilosophyAgeActionPoliticalEvilNationsTheoryCircumstancesMoralityDegreesCapableEthicsDeterminePhilosopherFormerHuman LifeSpeculationPresent DayReciprocalCausation
Author:Bertrand Russell
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“At the age of eleven, I began Euclid, with my brother as my tutor. This was one of the great events of my life, as dazzling as first love. I had not imagined there was anything so delicious in the world. From that moment until I was thirty-eight, mathematics was my chief interest and my chief source of happiness.”

WorldLifeFirstsMomentsAgeInterestImaginationEventsBrotherSourceMathematicsEightMathChiefsMathematicalThirtyMy BrotherThat MomentFirst LoveDeliciousElevenDazzlingTutorGreat EventsSource Of HappinessEuclidGreat MathThirty Eight
Book:Autobiography
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“He will see himself and life and the world as truly as our human limitations will permit; realizing the brevity and minuteness of human life, he will realize also that in individual minds is concentrated whatever of value the known universe contains. And he will see that the man whose mind mirrors the world becomes in a sense as great as the world. In emancipation from the fears that beset the slave of circumstance he will experience a profound joy, and through all the vicissitudes of his outward life he will remain in the depths of his being a happy man.”

MenWorldMindHumansSoulJoyValuesUniverseIndividualRealizingKnownHe ManCircumstancesMirrorsSlaveProfoundDepthLimitationHuman LifePermitEmancipationBrevityHappy ManVicissitudes
Book:The Conquest of Happiness
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“In the visible world, the Milky Way is a tiny fragment; within this fragment, the solar system is an infinitesimal speck, and of this speck our planet is a microscopic dot. On this dot, tiny lumps of impure carbon and water, of complicated structure, with somewhat unusual physical and chemical properties, crawl about for a few years, until they are dissolved again into the elements of which they are compounded.”

WorldWayYearsWaterPlanetsElementsStructurePropertyComplicatedTinyVisibleChemicalsUnusualCarbonFragmentsOur PlanetDotsLumpsSolar SystemSpecksMilky Way
Book:Sceptical Essays
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“The whole conception of a God is a conception derived from the ancient oriental despotisms. It is a conception quite unworthy of free men. We ought to stand up and look the world frankly in the face. We ought to make the best we can of the world, and if it is not so good as we wish, after all it will still be better than what these others have made of it in all these ages.”

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Book:Bertrand Russell's Best
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“Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand-in-hand. It is because fear is at the basis of those two things. In this world we can now begin a little to understand things, and a little to master them by the help of science, which has forced its way step by step against the Christian religion, against the churches, and against the opposition of all the old precepts.”

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Book:Why I Am Not a Christian: And Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects
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“Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.”

PeopleWorldInspirationalShouldHumansHeartChildrenLongWholeEarthPainSufferingEvilHeavenPovertyLonelinessCrySonMy HeartVictimBurdenWhole WorldPityHuman LifeEchoesHelplessOld PeopleFamineMockeryOppressorsAlleviate
Book:Autobiography
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“What else is there to make life tolerable? We stand on the shore of an ocean, crying to the night and to emptiness. Sometimes a voice of one drowning, and in a moment the silence returns. The world seems to me quite dreadful, the unhappiness of many people is very great, and I often wonder how they all endure it. It is usually the central thing around which their lives are built, and I suppose if they did not live most of their lives in the things of the moment, they would not be able to go on.”

PeopleIfsWorldLifeSometimesMomentsSeemsAbleNightVoiceSilenceWonderCryGoes OnReturnOceanBuiltEndureEmptinessUnhappinessShoreDrowningTolerable
Author:Bertrand Russell
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