"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts."
"One must expect a war between U.S.A. and U.S.S.R. which will begin with the total destruction of London. I think the war will last 30 years, and leave a world without civilised people, from which everything will have to build afresh - a process taking (say) 500 years."
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Source: Letter to Gamel Brenan (September 1, 1945), The Selected Letters of Bertrand Russell edited by Nicholas Griffin, (p. 410), 2002.
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