Bertrand Russell Quotes - Page 8

• I am sometimes shocked by the blasphemies of those who think themselves pious.

  Bertrand Russell

  Thinking, Intelligence, Sometimes

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Unpopular Essays”, p.73, Routledge

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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.

  Bertrand Russell

  Inspirational, Children, Pain

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Autobiography”, p.3, Routledge

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• While economics is about how people make choice, sociology is about how they don't have any choice to make.

  Bertrand Russell

  People, Choices, Economics

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• HELL: A place where the police are German, the motorists French and the cooks English.

  Bertrand Russell

  God, Travel, Police

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

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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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• Men who allow their love of power to give them a distorted view of the world are to be found in every asylum: one man will think he is the Governor of the Bank of England, another will think he is the King, and yet another will think he is God. Highly similar delusions, if expressed by educated men in obscure language, lead to professorships of philosophy; and if expressed by emotional men in eloquent language, lead to dictatorships.

  Bertrand Russell

  Kings, Philosophy, Men

  Bertrand Russell (2004). “Power: A New Social Analysis”, p.220, Routledge

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• Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise, for only a fool will think that is happiness.

  Bertrand Russell

  Thinking, Paradise, Fool

  Bertrand Russell (2014). “The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell”, p.554, Routledge

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• A happy life must be to a great extent a quiet life, for it is only in an atmosphere of quiet that true joy dare live.

  Bertrand Russell

  Happiness, Music, Happy Life

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• I believe that the abolition of private ownership of land and capital is a necessary step toward any world in which the nations are to live at peace with one another.

  Bertrand Russell

  Believe, Land, World

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “Proposed Roads to Freedom”, p.112, Booklassic

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• Fervent religious believers sacrifice pleasures of the body, but instead enjoy pleasures of the mind, including the joy of knowing that those men who didn't follow their religion would be tortured for eternity.

  Bertrand Russell

  Religious, Sacrifice, Men

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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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• It is possible that mankind is on the threshold of a golden age; but, if so, it will be necessary first to slay the dragon that guards the door, and this dragon is religion.

  Bertrand Russell

  Birthday, Doors, Dragons

  Bertrand Russell (1957). “Why I Am Not a Christian: And Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects”, p.47, Simon and Schuster

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• What is new in our time is the increased power of the authorities to enforce their prejudices.

  Bertrand Russell

  Time, Prejudice, Authority

  Bertrand Russell (2012). “The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell Volume 29: Détente or Destruction, 1955-57”, p.152, Routledge

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• Science tells us what we can know but what we can know is little and if we forget how much we cannot know we become insensitive of many things of very great importance. Theology, on the other hand induces a dogmatic belief that we have knowledge where in fact we have ignorance and by doing so generates a kind of impertinent insolence towards the universe. Uncertainty in the presence of vivid hopes and fears is painful, but must be endured if we wish to live without the support of comforting fairy tales.

  Bertrand Russell

  Ignorance, Hands, Support

  Bertrand Russell (2013). “History of Western Philosophy: Collectors Edition”, p.2, Routledge

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• Escape from boredom is one of the really powerful desires of almost all human beings.

  Bertrand Russell

  Powerful, Boredom, Desire

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Bertrand Russell's Best”, p.3, Routledge

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• It's easy to fall in love. The hard part is finding someone to catch you.

  Bertrand Russell

  Famous Love, Falling In Love, New Relationship

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• The world that we must seek is a world in which the creative spirit is alive, in which life is an adventure full of joy and hope, based rather upon the impulse to construct than upon the desire to retain what we possess or to seize what is possessed by others.

  Bertrand Russell

  Adventure, Creative, Joy

  Bertrand Russell (2013). “Roads to Freedom”, p.154, Routledge

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• One of the painful things about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision.

  Bertrand Russell

  Stupid, Ignorance, Imagination

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.676, Routledge

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• And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence

  Bertrand Russell

  Death, God, Spiritual

  Bertrand Russell, John G. Slater, Peter Köllner (1997). “Last Philosophical Testament: 1943-68”, p.554, Psychology Press

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• All exact science is dominated by the idea of approximation.

  Bertrand Russell

  Math, Science, Ideas

  Bertrand Russell (2001). “The Scientific Outlook”, p.45, Psychology Press

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• What men really want is not knowledge but certainty.

  Bertrand Russell

  Knowledge, Men, Want

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• Perhaps the best hope for the future of mankind is that ways will be found of increasing the scope and intensity of sympathy.

  Bertrand Russell

  Way, Found, Intensity

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.455, Routledge

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• For love of domination we must substitute equality; for love of victory we must substitute justice; for brutality we must substitute intelligence; for competition we must substitute cooperation. We must learn to think of the human race as one family.

  Bertrand Russell

  Equality, Thinking, Race

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• I've made an odd discovery. Every time I talk to a savant I feel quite sure that happiness is no longer a possibility. Yet when I talk with my gardener, I'm convinced of the opposite.

  Bertrand Russell

  Life, Happiness, Gratitude

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• No satisfaction based upon self-deception is solid, and however unpleasant the truth may be, it is better to face it once and for all, to get used to it, and to proceed to build your life in accordance with it.

  Bertrand Russell

  Self, Deception, May

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “The Conquest of Happiness”, p.72, Lulu Press, Inc

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