Bertrand Russell Quotes - Page 5

• The problem with the wise is they are so filled with doubts while the dull are so certain.

  Bertrand Russell

  Faith, Wise, Doubt

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• No rules, however wise, are a substitute for affection and tact.

  Bertrand Russell

  Wise, Affection, Substitutes

  Bertrand Russell (2004). “In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays”, p.147, Psychology Press

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• One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important.

  Bertrand Russell

  Success, Work, Stress

  Conquest of Happiness (1930) ch. 5

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• Love should be a tree whose roots are deep in the earth, but whose branches extend into heaven.

  Bertrand Russell

  Love, Roots, Tree

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Marriage and Morals”, p.175, Routledge

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• The main thing needed to make men happy is intelligence.

  Bertrand Russell

  Happiness, Men, Needed

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• It is likely that America will be more important during the next century or two, but after that it may well be the turn of China.

  Bertrand Russell

  Two, America, Important

  Bertrand Russell (2014). “The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell”, p.416, Routledge

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• If the State does not acquire supremacy over [vast private] enterprises, it becomes their puppet, and they become the real State.

  Bertrand Russell

  Real, Puppets, Doe

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.652, Routledge

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• Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise.

  Bertrand Russell

  Philosophy, Past, Degrees

  Bertrand Russell, Robert Charles Marsh (1988). “Logic and Knowledge: Essays 1901-1950”, p.180, Psychology Press

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• It seems to me a fundamental dishonesty, and a fundamental treachery to intellectual integrity to hold a belief because you think it's useful and not because you think it's true.

  Bertrand Russell

  Integrity, Thinking, Intellectual

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• Aristotle, in spite of his reputation, is full of absurdities. He says that children should be conceived in the Winter, when the wind is in the North, and that if people marry too young the children will be female. He tells us that the blood of females is blacker than that of males; that the pig is the only animal liable to measles; that an elephant suffering from insomnia should have its shoulders rubbed with salt, olive-oil, and warm water; that women have fewer teeth than men, and so on. Nevertheless, he is considered by the great majority of philosophers a paragon of wisdom.

  Bertrand Russell

  Wisdom, Children, Winter

  Bertrand Russell (1943). “An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish: A Hilarious Catalogue of Organized and Individual Stupidity”

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• Grasshopper always wrong in argument with chicken.

  Bertrand Russell

  Wisdom, Argument, Grasshoppers

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• If all our happiness is bound up entirely in our personal circumstances it is difficult not to demand of life more than it has to give.

  Bertrand Russell

  Change, Happiness, Success

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “The Conquest of Happiness”, p.90, Lulu Press, Inc

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• If the ordinary wage-earner worked four hours a day, there would be enough for everybody, and no unemployment — assuming a certain very moderate amount of sensible organization. This idea shocks the well-to-do, because they are convinced that the poor would not know how to use so much leisure.

  Bertrand Russell

  Philosophy, Son, Men

  "In praise of idleness: and other essays".

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• The chicken noticed that the farmer came every day to feed it. It predicted that the farmer would continue to bring food every day. Inductivists think that the chicken had "extrapolated" its observations into a theory, and that each feeding time added justification to that theory. Then one day the farmer came and wrung the chicken's neck. This inductively justifies the conclusion that induction cannot justify any conclusion.

  Bertrand Russell

  Thinking, One Day, Necks

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• What we cannot think we cannot think, therefore we also cannot say what we cannot think.

  Bertrand Russell

  Thinking

  Bertrand Russell, John Greer Slater, Bernd Frohmann (1988). “Essays on language, mind, and matter, 1919-26”, Allen & Unwin Australia

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• The more we realize our minuteness and our impotence in the face of cosmic forces, the more amazing becomes what human beings have achieved.

  Bertrand Russell

  Achievement, Faces, Realizing

  Bertrand Russell (1993). “The Quotable Bertrand Russell”

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• We are told that Sin consists in acting contrary to God's commands, but we are also told that God is omnipotent. If He is, nothing contrary to His will can occur; therefore when the sinner disobeys His commands, He must have intended this to happen.

  Bertrand Russell

  Funny, God, Humorous

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.51, Routledge

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• All human activity is prompted by desire.

  Bertrand Russell

  Desire, Humans, Human Activity

  Bertrand Russell (2013). “Human Society in Ethics and Politics”, p.160, Routledge

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• The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge.

  Bertrand Russell

  Love, Life, Relationship

  Bertrand Russell (1957). “Why I Am Not a Christian: And Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects”, p.56, Simon and Schuster

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• The opinions that are held with passion are always those for which no good ground exists; indeed the passion is the measure of the holders lack of rational conviction. Opinions in politics and religion are almost always held passionately.

  Bertrand Russell

  Passion, Opinion, Critical Thinking

  Sceptical Essays "Introduction: On the Value of Skepticism" (1961)

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• The experience of overcoming fear is extraordinarily delightful.

  Bertrand Russell

  Fear, Overcoming, Overcoming Fear

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “On Education”, p.65, Routledge

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• All forms of fear produce fatigue.

  Bertrand Russell

  Fear, Form, Produce

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “The Conquest of Happiness”, p.43, Lulu Press, Inc

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• It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly.

  Bertrand Russell

  Life, Money, Freedom

  "Principles of Social Reconstruction". Book by Bertrand Russell, 1917.

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• I do not believe that I am now dreaming, but I cannot prove that I am not.

  Bertrand Russell

  Dream, Believe, Prove

  Bertrand Russell (2013). “Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Value”, p.186, Routledge

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• Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.

  Bertrand Russell

  4th Of July, Patriotic, Government

  "Sceptical Essays". Ch. 13: Freedom in Society. Book by Bertrand Russell, 1928.

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