British - Philosopher | May 18, 1872 - February 2, 1970
The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it.
Bertrand Russell
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Freedom of opinion can only exist when the government thinks itself secure.
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I think we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn't wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine.
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Almost everything that distinguishes the modern world from earlier centuries is attributable to science, which achieved its most spectacular triumphs in the seventeenth century.
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Many people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.
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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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Against my will, in the course of my travels, the belief that everything worth knowing was known at Cambridge gradually wore off. In this respect my travels were very useful to me.
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No one gossips about other people's secret virtues.
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The fundamental defect of fathers, in our competitive society, is that they want their children to be a credit to them.
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Men who are unhappy, like men who sleep badly, are always proud of the fact.
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Many a man will have the courage to die gallantly, but will not have the courage to say, or even to think, that the cause for which he is asked to die is an unworthy one.
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Every philosophical problem, when it is subjected to the necessary analysis and justification, is found either to be not really philosophical at all, or else to be, in the sense in which we are using the word, logical.
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