Conventional people are roused to fury by departure from convention, largely because they regard such departure as a criticism of themselves.
BERTRAND RUSSELLPhilosophy, from the earliest times, has made greater claims, and achieved fewer results, than any other branch of learning.
More Bertrand Russell Quotes
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Never try to discourage thinking, for you are sure to succeed.
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A sense of duty is useful in work but offensive in personal relations. People wish to be liked, not to be endured with patient resignation.
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Dogmatism is the greatest of mental obstacles to human happiness.
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Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education.
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I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world.
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No one ever gossips about the virtues of others.
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The search for something permanent is one of the deepest of the instincts leading men to philosophy.
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Those who have never known the deep intimacy and the intense companionship of happy mutual love have missed the best thing that life has to give.
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To write a tragedy, a man must feel the tragedy. To feel tragedy, a man must be aware of the world in which he lives. Not only with his mind, but with his blood and sinews.
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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.
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One of the most powerful of all our passions is the desire to be admired and respected.
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Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.
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The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way.
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Anything you’re good at contributes to happiness.
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Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.
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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 can live.
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Not to be absolutely certain is, I think, one of the essential things in rationality.
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Men who are unhappy, like men who sleep badly, are always proud of the fact.
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Mathematics rightly viewed possesses not only truth but supreme beauty.
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Freedom of opinion can only exist when the government thinks itself secure.
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So far as I can remember there is not one word in the gospels in praise of intelligence.
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The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.
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There is no reason to suppose that the world had a beginning at all. The idea that things must have a beginning is really due to the poverty of our thoughts.
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Few people can be happy unless they hate some other person, nation, or creed.
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No nation was ever so virtuous as each believes itself, and none was ever so wicked as each believes the other.
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It is the preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly.
BERTRAND RUSSELL