"So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence."
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Bertrand Russell quotes (page 5 of 60)
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"Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines."
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"Logic must no more admit a unicorn than zoology can."
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"War doesn't determine who's right, it determines who's left"
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"Most human beings, though in varying degrees, desire to control, not only their own lives but also the lives of others"
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"An atheist, like a Christian, holds that we can know whether or not there is a God. The Christian holds that we can know there is a God; the atheist, that we can know there is not. The Agnostic suspends judgment, saying that there are not sufficient grounds either for affirmation or for denial. At the same time, an Agnostic may hold that the existence of God, though not impossible, is very improbable; he may even hold it so improbable that it is not worth considering in practice. In that case, he is not far removed from atheism."
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"I wish to propose for the reader's favourable consideration a doctrine which may, I fear, appear wildly paradoxical and subversive. The doctrine in question is this: that it is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing it true."
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"The knowledge exists by which universal happiness can be secured; the chief obstacle to its utilization for that purpose is the teaching of religion. Religion prevents our children from having a rational education; religion prevents us from removing the fundamental causes of war; religion prevents us from teaching the ethic of scientific cooperation in place of the old fierce doctrines of sin and punishment. 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."
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"Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness."
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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."
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"Love is something far more than desire for sexual intercourse; it is the principal means of escape from the loneliness which afflicts most men and women throughout the greater part of their lives."
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"Mathematics rightly viewed possesses not only truth but supreme beauty."
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"Few people can be happy unless they hate some other person, nation, or creed."
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"No great achievement is possible without persistent work."
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"To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness."
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"If an opinion contrary to your own makes you angry, that is a sign that you are subconsciously aware of having no good reason for thinking as you do."
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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."
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"Much that passes as idealism is disguised hatred or disguised love of power."
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"Truth is a shining goddess, always veiled, always distant, never wholly approachable, but worthy of all the devotion of which the human spirit is capable."
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"No man treats a motorcar as foolishly as he treats another human being. When the car will not go, he does not attribute its annoying behavior to sin; he does not say, 'You are a wicked motorcar, and I shall not give you any more petrol until you go.' He attempts to find out what is wrong and to set it right."
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