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Connexions Quotations
Bertrand Russell
Quotes
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Advocates of capitalism are very apt to appeal to the sacred principles of liberty, which are embodied in one maxim:
The fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the unfortunate.
- Bertrand Russell
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The best life is the one in which the creative impulses play the largest part and the possessive impulses the smallest.
- Bertrand Russell
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Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken.
- Bertrand Russell
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The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd.
- Bertrand Russell
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First of all: what is work? Work is of two kinds:
first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth’s surface relatively to other such matter;
second, telling other people to do so. The first kind is unpleasant and ill paid; the second is pleasant and highly paid.
- Bertrand Russell
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The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge.
- Bertrand Russell
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I believe that when I die I shall rot, and nothing of my ego will survive.
I am not young and I love life. But I should scorn to shiver with terror at the thought of annihilation.
Happiness is nonetheless true happiness because it must come to an end, nor do thought and love lose their value because they are not everlasting.
- Bertrand Russell
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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.
- Bertrand Russell
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In democratic countries, the most important private organizations are economic. Unlike secret societies, they are able to exercise their terrorism without illegality, since they do not threaten to kill their enemies, but only to starve them.
- Bertrand Russell
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Nine-tenths of the activities of a modern Government are harmful; therefore the worse they are performed, the better.
- Bertrand Russell
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“No, I won’t.”
Bertrand Russell's reply to the magistrate who asked him whether he would pledge himself to "good behaviour" in the future, after Russell had been arrested at an anti-nuclear sit-in in September 1961. As a result of his refusal, Russell, 89 years old at the time, was sent to jail.
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No rules, however wise, are a substitute for affection and tact.
- Bertrand Russell
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Orthodoxy is the death of intelligence.
- Bertrand Russell
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The secret of happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile.
- Bertrand Russell
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There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge.
- Bertrand Russell
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Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, Thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought is great and swift and free.
- Bertrand Russell
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The tragedy of the people of Palestine is that their country was "given" by a foreign power to another people for the creation of a new state. The result was that many hundreds of thousands of innocent people were made permanently homeless. With every new conflict their numbers increased. How much longer is the world willing to endure this spectacle of wanton cruelty? It is abundantly clear that the refugees have every right to the homeland from which they were driven, and the denial of this right is at the heart of the continuing conflict. No people anywhere in the world would accept being expelled en masse from their country; how can anyone require the people of Palestine to accept a punishment which nobody else would tolerate? A permanent just settlement of the refugees in their homeland is an essential ingredient of any genuine settlement in the Middle East.
- Bertrand Russell
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First of all: what is work? Work is of two kinds:
first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth’s surface relatively to other such matter;
second, telling other people to do so. The first kind is unpleasant and ill paid; the second is pleasant and highly paid.
- Bertrand Russell
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Without effort and change, human life cannot remain good. It is not a finished Utopia that we ought to desire, but a world where imagination and hope are alive and active.
- Bertrand Russell
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Without rebellion, mankind would stagnate, and injustice would be irremediable.
- Bertrand Russell
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Read more about Bertrand Russell.
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