Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.
BERTRAND RUSSELLMachines have altered our way of life, but not our instincts. Consequently, there is maladjustment.
More Bertrand Russell Quotes
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In all affairs, it’s a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.
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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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The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution.
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Few people can be happy unless they hate some other person, nation, or creed.
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There are two motives for reading a book; one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it.
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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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It is the preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly.
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What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.
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The demand for certainty is one that is natural to man but is nevertheless an intellectual vice.
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Not to be absolutely certain is, I think, one of the essential things in rationality.
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This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered to me.
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Language serves not only to express thought but to make possible thoughts that could not exist without it.
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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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Life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim.
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The use of self-control is like the use of brakes on the train. It is useful when you find yourself in the wrong direction but merely harmful when the direction is right.
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It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence that could support this.
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Is there any knowledge in the world that is so certain that no reasonable man could doubt it?
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Mathematics rightly viewed possesses not only truth but supreme beauty.
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Your writing is never as good as you hoped, but never as bad as you feared.
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To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.
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Conquer the world by intelligence, and not merely by being slavishly subdued by the terror that comes from it.
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The fundamental concept in social science is power, in the same sense in which energy is the fundamental concept in physics.
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Love can flourish only as long as it is free and spontaneous; it tends to be killed by the thought of duty. To say that it is your duty to love so-and-so is the surest way to cause you to hate him of her.
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One must care about a world one will not see.
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Politics is largely governed by sententious platitudes which are devoid of truth.
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Patriots always talk of dying for their country but never of killing for their country.
BERTRAND RUSSELL