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" One should respect public opinion insofar as is necessary to avoid starvation and keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny. "
Bertrand Russell
Respect
Tyranny
Prison
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" Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom. "
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" The only thing that will redeem mankind is cooperation. "
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" The fundamental concept in social science is Power, in the same sense in which Energy is the fundamental concept in physics. "
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" One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important. "
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" To understand a name you must be acquainted with the particular of which it is a name. "
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" The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd. "
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" Many people when they fall in love look for a little haven of refuge from the world, where they can be sure of being admired when they are not admirable, and praised when they are not praiseworthy. "
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" There is something feeble and a little contemptible about a man who cannot face the perils of life without the help of comfortable myths. "
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" In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted. "
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" The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being more than Man, which is the touchstone of the highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics as surely as poetry. "
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" Reason is a harmonising, controlling force rather than a creative one. "
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" The slave is doomed to worship time and fate and death, because they are greater than anything he finds in himself, and because all his thoughts are of things which they devour. "
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" I've made an odd discovery. Every time I talk to a savant I feel quite sure that happiness is no longer a possibility. Yet when I talk with my gardener, I'm convinced of the opposite. "
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" Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones. "
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" A process which led from the amoeba to man appeared to the philosophers to be obviously a progress though whether the amoeba would agree with this opinion is not known. "
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" The coward wretch whose hand and heart Can bear to torture aught below, Is ever first to quail and start From the slightest pain or equal foe. "
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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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" It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly. "
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" 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. "
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" Sin is geographical. "
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" Dogmatism and skepticism are both, in a sense, absolute philosophies; one is certain of knowing, the other of not knowing. What philosophy should dissipate is certainty, whether of knowledge or ignorance. "
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" Boredom is... a vital problem for the moralist, since half the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it. "
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" Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric. "
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" Awareness of universals is called conceiving, and a universal of which we are aware is called a concept. "
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" The pleasure of work is open to anyone who can develop some specialised skill, provided that he can get satisfaction from the exercise of his skill without demanding universal applause. "
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" Contempt for happiness is usually contempt for other people's happiness, and is an elegant disguise for hatred of the human race. "
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" Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives' mouths. "
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" The theoretical understanding of the world, which is the aim of philosophy, is not a matter of great practical importance to animals, or to savages, or even to most civilised men. "
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" With the introduction of agriculture mankind entered upon a long period of meanness, misery, and madness, from which they are only now being freed by the beneficent operation of the machine. "
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