"Mathematics is only the art of saying the same thing in different words."
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Bertrand Russell quotes (page 41 of 60)
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"I don't care for the applause one gets by saying what others are thinking; I want actually to change people's thoughts. Power over people's minds is the main personal desire of my life; and this sort of power is not acquired by saying popular things."
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"The sea, the stars, the night wind in waste places, mean more to me than even the human beings I love best."
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"My conclusion is that there is no reason to believe any of the dogmas of traditional theology and, further, that there is no reason to wish that they were true. Man, in so far as he is not subject to natural forces, is free to work out his own destiny. The responsibility is his, and so is the opportunity."
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"From the height of their disillusionment they look down upon those whom they despise as simple souls. For my part I have no sympathy with this outlook. All disenchantment is to me a malady, which, it is true, certain circumstances may render inevitable, but which none the less, when it occurs, is to be cured as soon as possible, not to be regarded as a higher form of wisdom."
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"When you come to look into this argument from design, it is a most astonishing thing that people can believe that this world, with all the things that are in it, with all its defects, should be the best that omnipotence and omniscience has been able to produce in millions of years."
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"Stupidity and unconscious bias often work more damage than venality."
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"A democrat need not believe that the majority will always reach a wise decision. He should however believe in the necessity of accepting the decision of the majority, be it wise or unwise, until such a time that the majority reaches another decision."
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"Most political leaders acquire their position by causing large numbers of people to believe that these leaders are actuated by altruistic desires"
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"The criminal law has, from the point of view of thwarted virtue, the merit of allowing an outlet for those impulses of aggression which cowardice, disguised as morality, restrains in their more spontaneous forms. War has the same merit. You must not kill you neighbor, whom perhaps you genuinely hate, but by a little propaganda this hate can be transferred to some foreign nation, against whom all your murderous impulses become patriotic heroism."
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"I hold all knowledge that is concerned with things that actually exist - all that is commonly called Science - to be of very slight value compared to the knowledge which, like philosophy and mathematics, is concerned with ideal and eternal objects, and is freed from this miserable world which God has made."
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"Writing can be either readable or precise, but not at the same time."
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"The resistance to a new idea increases by the square of its importance."
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"This, however, is a passing nightmare; in time the earth will become again incapable of supporting life, and peace will return."
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"That which exists through itself is called The Eternal. The Eternal has neither name nor shape. It is the one essence, the one primal spirit. Essence and life cannot be seen. They are contained in the light of heaven. The light of heaven cannot be seen. It is contained in the two eyes."
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"My own belief is that in most ages and in most places obscure psychological forces led men to adopt systems involving quite unnecessary cruelty, and that this is still the case among the most civilized races at the present day."
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"I did not know I loved you until I heard myself telling so, for one instance I thought, "Good God, what have I said?" and then I knew it was true."
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"If one lived for ever the joys of life would inevitably in the end lose their savour. As it is, they remain perennially fresh."
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"Into every tidy scheme for arranging the pattern of human life, it is necessary to inject a certain dose of anarchism."
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"The free intellect is the chief engine of human progress."
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