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Science seems to be at war with itself.... Naive realism leads to physics, and physics, if true, shows naive realism to be false. Therefore naive realism, if true, is false; therefore it is false.
Bertrand Russell -
I am looking forward very much to getting back to Cambridge, and being able to say what I think and not to mean what I say: two things which at home are impossible. Cambridge is one of the few places where one can talk unlimited nonsense and generalities without anyone pulling one up or confronting one with them when one says just the opposite the next day.
Bertrand Russell
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It is clear that thought is not free if the profession of certain opinions makes it impossible to earn a living.
Bertrand Russell -
If, when a man writes a poem or commits a murder, the bodily movements involved in his act result solely from physical causes, it would seem absurd to put up a statue to him in the one case and to hang him in the other.
Bertrand Russell -
Ethics is in origin the art of recommending to others the sacrifices required for co-operation with oneself.
Bertrand Russell -
Mystery is delightful, but unscientific, since it depends upon ignorance.
Bertrand Russell -
No nation was ever so virtuous as each believes itself, and none was ever so wicked as each believes the other.
Bertrand Russell -
Mysticism is, in essence, little more than a certain intensity and depth of feeling in regard to what is believed about the universe.
Bertrand Russell
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To understand a name you must be acquainted with the particular of which it is a name.
Bertrand Russell -
I do wish I believed in the life eternal, for it makes me quite miserable to think man is merely a kind of machine endowed, unhappily for himself, with consciousness.
Bertrand Russell -
The supreme maxim in scientific philosophising is this: wherever possible, logical constructions are to be substituted for inferred entities.
Bertrand Russell -
Obscenity is whatever happens to shock some elderly and ignorant magistrate.
Bertrand Russell -
I am ashamed of belonging to the species Homo Sapiens...You & I may be thankful to have lived in happier times – you more than I, because you have no children.
Bertrand Russell -
Americans need rest, but do not know it. I believe this to be a large part of the explanation of the crime wave in the United States.
Bertrand Russell
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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.
Bertrand Russell -
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.
Bertrand Russell -
There is no need to worry about mere size. We do not necessarily respect a fat man more than a thin man. Sir Isaac Newton was very much smaller than a hippopotamus, but we do not on that account value him less.
Bertrand Russell -
I cannot escape from the conclusion that the great ages of progress have depended upon a small number of individuals of transcendent ability.
Bertrand Russell -
A life devoted to science is therefore a happy life, and its happiness is derived from the very best sources that are open to dwellers on this troubled and passionate planet.
Bertrand Russell -
Written words differ from spoken words in being material structures. A spoken word is a process in the physical world, having an essential time-order; a written word is a series of pieces of matter, having an essential space-order.
Bertrand Russell
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Ironclads and Maxim guns must be the ultimate arbiters of metaphysical truth.
Bertrand Russell -
The observer, when he seems to himself to be observing a stone, is really, if physics is to be believed, observing the effects of the stone upon himself.
Bertrand Russell -
To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.
Bertrand Russell -
The governors of the world believe, and have always believed, that virtue can only be taught by teaching falsehood, and that any man who knew the truth would be wicked. I disbelieve this, absolutely and entirely. I believe that love of truth is the basis of all real virtue, and that virtues based upon lies can only do harm.
Bertrand Russell