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This is one of those views which are so absolutely absurd that only very learned men could possibly adopt them.


Bertrand Russell

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There are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them.
GEORGE ORWELL I remember the philosopher Bertrand Russell was asked why he spent his time protesting against nucle...
CHOMSKY NOAM I'm very, very proud of Bertrand. It was his idea, his preparation, his dream. I could only encourag...
JACQUES PICCARD How different the reasoning is that men adopt when they are discussing the cases of men and those of...
EMMELINE PANKHURST Men are disturbed not by things, but by the views which they take of them
EPICTETUS I have in later years taken to Euclid, Whitehead, Bertrand Russell, in an elemental way.
CARL SANDBERG I have in later years taken to Euclid, Whitehead, Bertrand Russell, in an elemental way.
CARL SANDBURG I dislike Nietzsche because he likes the contemplation of pain, because he erects conceit into a dut...
BERTRAND RUSSELL This instinctive repulsion which tradespeople inspire in men of sensitive feeling is one of the very...
LOUIS-FERDINAND CELINE Thus, the controversy about the Moral Majority arises not only from its views, but from its name - w...
EDWARD KENNEDY Confusion is a luxury which only the very, very young can possibly afford and you are not that young...
JAMES BALDWIN But that we are so totally depraved, is a truth which no one ever truly learned by being only told i...
JOHN NEWTON If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun...
BERTRAND RUSSELL To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.
BERTRAND RUSSEL It is the preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living free...
BERTRAND RUSSELL All that alcohol does for them is to liberate the sense of sin, which reason suppresses in saner mom...
BERTRAND RUSSELL I came to feel very, very sentimental about those sets, which is ludicrous, because they represent e...
PATRICK STEWART It may seem absurd to some that all desires by which man is by nature affected are so completely con...
JOHN CALVIN But the only way we could do that was to adopt the baby, so that was out of the question,
ROBERT FRANCO Only the Holy Father can decide which men are suitable. But if the government is worried about an ap...
CARDINAL ZEN If there's a strong majority of Sunnis, which is very possible, that vote against that constitution,...
CARL LEVIN My perfect day would be to go on a picnic up Mt. Wilson with Christopher Isherwood, Greta Garbo, Ald...
JANET FITCH You must realize that it is the ordinary way of God's dealings with us that our ideas do not work ou...
THOMAS MERTON I believe in you and me. I'm like Albert Schweitzer and Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein in that...
FRANK SINATRA To be happy, one only must be able to confront, which is to say, experience, those things that are. ...
L. RON HUBBARD There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them.
GEORGE ORWELL "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been forme...
CHARLES DARWIN If you never learned to hold onto someone, how could it possibly hurt now to let them go?
SHANNON L. ALDER The notion that writings created at a time when men huddled in superstitious terror from an eclipse ...
DAVE CHAMPION When they ran out of cadre men they gave me my very own platoon and said, 'Here are 63 men, try ...
DAVID EDDINGS My very brief overview of the site is that, while possibly generating unnecessary fear, it is absolu...
DAWN WYLAND The take-home message is that we should blame religion itself, not religious extremism - as though t...
RICHARD DAWKINS There are just some kind of men who're so busy worrying about the next world they've never learned t...
HARPER LEE ...The men of those days...were absolutely not the same people that we are now; it was not the same ...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY In revolution there are only two sorts of men, those who cause them and those who profit by them
NAPOLEON BONAPARTE When men are most sure and arrogant they are commonly most mistaken, giving views to passion without...
DAVID HUME I've spent a life-time attacking religious beliefs and have not wavered from a view of the universe ...
PHILLIP ADAMS Did not learned men, too, hold, till within the last twenty-five years, that a flying dragon was an ...
CHARLES KINGSLEY To Taoism that which is absolutely still or absolutely perfect is absolutely dead, for without the p...
ALAN W. WATTS Thus the creation, which seems an arbitrary act, supposes laws as invariable as those of the fatalit...
CHARLES DE SECONDAT I've learned this, that haters wanna hate. You could sing a song perfectly, you could write the ...
CARRIE UNDERWOOD I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors, and I shall adopt new views so fast as they s...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN The prevailing legal and moral views of a time are held not only by those whom they benefit but by t...
LUDWIG VON MISES Two things are to be remembered: that a man whose opinions and theories are worth studying may be pr...
BERTRAND RUSSELL War does not determine who is right — only who is left.
ANONYMOUS The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd;...
BERTRAND RUSSELL As far as I know, only a small minority of mathematicians, even of those with Platonist views, accep...
ABRAHAM ROBINSON Only exceptionally rational men can afford to be absurd.
ALLAN GOLDFEIN Only exceptional rational men can afford to be absurd.
ALLAN GOLDFEIN You only trust those who are absolutely like yourself, those who have signed a pledge of allegiance ...
JUDITH BUTLER We know from the testing that's been done so far that this is not influenza, we know this is not SAR...
ALLISON MCGEER Some of those pilots were very high-time pilots, with the best airline transport rating, which is th...
DON KENNEDY What I like so very much about this meditation is that you can take what you've learned and go about...
DAVID LYNCH One of the lessons learned from 22 July is that we have to take seriously all those people who take ...
JENS STOLTENBERG Most of us have learned the hard way that there are very few things you can absolutely count on in l...
GRAYDON CARTER I learned then that I could not tolerate any kind of bigotry or hatred, absolutely none,
VIVIEN SPITZ It is as absurd to argue men, as to torture them, into believing.
CARDINAL J. NEWMAN It is as absurd to argue men, as to torture them, into believing.
CARDINAL NEWMAN Google may wish they hadn't embraced that. It's a very long rope on which they could possibly hang t...
JOHN BATTELLE When men are the most sure and arrogant they are commonly the most mistaken, giving views to passion...
DAVID HUME The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. Instead of altering their views to f...
DOCTOR WHO I definitely experienced so much this year: every high and every low, and I think it's been the most...
ASHLEE SIMPSON I'm allergic to dogs, so I couldn't even adopt what gay men typically adopt when they have t...
DAN SAVAGE There are many other viruses it could be. The Ontario Public Health lab is working very hard on iden...
ALLISON MCGEER To reduce this claim of slavery to an absurdity, it is only necessary to add that there are only two...
WILLIAM H. SEWARD No vices are so incurable as those which men are apt to glory in
JOSEPH ADDISON We are a hospitable country, which is why Jean-Bertrand Aristide is here. And he will stay here for ...
FRANCOIS BOZIZE Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to accept the views which Cicero, which...
RALPH WALDO EMERSON If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been forme...
CHARLES DARWIN Abolitionists believe that, as all men are born free, so all who are now held as slaves in this coun...
ELIJAH PARISH LOVEJOY My job as a social studies teacher is to argue alternative perspectives and viewpoints so that stude...
JAY BENNISH I think, like many others, I realized that only the massive introduction of American support in one ...
DAVID K. E. BRUCE One of my favourite exhibitions is called 'Do It,' which I co-curated with the artists Chris...
HANS-ULRICH OBRIST The same is the case with those opinions of man to which he has been accustomed from his youth; he l...
MAIMONIDES The only stable state is the one in which all men are equal before the law.
ARISTOTLE I think I would have to go so far as to say Russell is Jim Braddock. I'm amazed the way Russell pick...
ANGELO DUNDEE One who fails has not failed absolutely, rather they have learned absolutely
GGMAN There are so many wonderful pledges that could come in in the next few years, but this winter is in ...
ANGELINA JOLIE Your heart just breaks, that's all. But you can't judge or point fingers. You just have to be lucky ...
AUDREY HEPBURN She is one of those ladies who is more beautiful at sixty than she could possibly have been at twent...
MARY ANN SHAFFER The commonest fallacy among women is that simply having children makes them a mother - which is as a...
SYDNEY J. HARRIS If only I could step back into the time of old movies, if only I could be given the opportunity to d...
KARI MATCHETT Feast of Nicholas, Bishop of Myra, c.326 If one could talk absolutely humanly about Christ, on...
SØREN KIERKEGAARD anything could happen. The one good thing to come from this is that (market) forecasting will probab...
NICK KNIGHT Today, there are problems that could only be solved by people which are still to be born later. This...
TOBA BETA I have learned to love that which is meant to harm me, so that I can stand in the way of those who a...
MARGARET CHO I have watched them all day and they are the same men that we are. I believe that I could walk up to...
ERNEST HEMINGWAY There is only one valid species of voyage, which is walk towards the men.
ELLA MAILLART Jealousy and possessiveness seems to be the hallmark of love
SOTONYE ANGA Bertrand Russell declared that, in case he met God, he would say to Him, "Sir, you did not give us e...
KURT VONNEGUT There are men whom a happy disposition, a strong desire of glory and esteem, inspire with the same l...
CLAUDE ADRIEN HELVETIUS There are men whom a happy disposition, a strong desire of glory and esteem, inspire with the same l...
CLAUDE ADRIEN HELVETIUS We are so constituted by Nature that we easily believe the things we hope for, but believe only with...
BARUCH (_BENEDICT DE) SPINOZA Schneider, (Joe) Fallon, (Travis) Russell are very similar. They usually save the first and second s...
BRADY LEISENRING The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence i...
ALBERT CAMUS This universe can very well be expressed in words and syllables which are not those of one's mot...
TAHAR BEN JELLOUN In praising science, it does not follow that we must adopt the very poor philosophies which scientif...
DEAN INGE There are some things which cannot be learned quickly, and time, which is all we have, must be paid ...
ERNEST HEMINGWAY A lonely, quiet person has observations and experiences that are at once both more indistinct and mo...
THOMAS MANN Only those who attempt the absurd can achieve the impossible.
ALBERT EINSTEIN

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BERTRAND RUSSELL The secret of happiness is to face the fact that the world is horrible, horrible, horrible.
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BERTRAND RUSSELL Love can flourish only as long as it is free and spontaneous; it tends to be killed by the thought o...
BERTRAND RUSSELL So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.
BERTRAND RUSSELL There is no nonsense so arrant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate gov...
BERTRAND RUSSELL The place of the father in the modern suburban family is a very small one, particularly if he plays ...
BERTRAND RUSSELL Passive acceptance of the teacher's wisdom is easy to most boys and girls. It involves no effort of ...
BERTRAND RUSSELL Science may set limits to knowledge, but should not set limits to imagination.
BERTRAND RUSSELL This is patently absurd; but whoever wishes to become a philosopher must learn not to be frightened ...
BERTRAND RUSSELL Love is something far more than desire for sexual intercourse; it is the principal means of escape f...
BERTRAND RUSSELL Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt ...
BERTRAND RUSSELL Many people when they fall in love look for a little haven of refuge from the world, where they can ...
BERTRAND RUSSELL Next to enjoying ourselves, the next greatest pleasure consists in preventing others from enjoying t...
BERTRAND RUSSELL I like mathematics because it is not human and has nothing particular to do with this planet or with...
BERTRAND RUSSELL Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
BERTRAND RUSSELL The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and...
BERTRAND RUSSELL War does not determine who is right - only who is left.
BERTRAND RUSSELL Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth's surface rela...
BERTRAND RUSSELL Science is what you know, philosophy is what you don't know.
BERTRAND RUSSELL The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge.
BERTRAND RUSSELL Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.
BERTRAND RUSSELL Admiration of the proletariat, like that of dams, power stations, and aeroplanes, is part of the ide...
BERTRAND RUSSELL Ethics is in origin the art of recommending to others the sacrifices required for cooperation with o...
BERTRAND RUSSELL It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which...
BERTRAND RUSSELL Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the i...
BERTRAND RUSSELL The degree of one's emotions varies inversely with one's knowledge of the facts.
BERTRAND RUSSELL