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"As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one can prove that there is not a God. On the other hand, if I am to convey the right impression to the ordinary man in the street I think that I ought to say that I am an Atheist, because, when I say that I cannot prove that there is not a God, I ought to add equally that I cannot prove that there are not the Homeric gods."
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"The Bible warns [parents] against extremes in dealing with our adult children. It tells us to avoid trying to control [them] once they become adults. When children become independent, a major transition takes place: They are no longer under our authority."

"This heart within me I can feel, and I judge that it exists. This world I can touch, and I likewise judge that it exists. There ends all my knowledge, and the rest is construction. (...) Forever I shall be a stranger to myself."

"I am engaged in spiritual warfare every day. I must never let down my guard-I must keep armed."

"Who gave fire permission to burn?"

"But if I feel, may I never express? "Never! declared Reason.I groaned under her bitter sternness. Never - never - oh, hard word! This hag, this Reason, would not let me look up, or smile, or hope; she could not rest unless I were altogether crushed, cowed, broken-in, and broken down. According to her, I was born only to work for a piece of bread, to await the pains of death, and steadily through all life to despond. Reason might be right; yet no wonder we are glad at times to defy her, to rush from under her rod and give a truant hour to Imagination - her soft, bright foe, our sweet Help, our divine Hope."

"Whatever the degree of your knowledge, these two-existence and consciousness-are axioms you cannot escape, these two are the irreducible primaries implied in any action you undertake, in any part of your knowledge and in its sum, from the first ray of light you perceive at the start of your life to the widest erudition you might acquire at its end."

"...because wherever else the future leads, it leads ultimately to death, the end that is present in my beginning and in yours."

"Why is it that the cross has become the symbol of Christianity? It is because at the cross Jesus purchased our redemptionand provided a righteousness which we could not ourselves earn."

"Do not become more useful than God."

"Those who expect to be both ignorant and free, expect what never was and never will be."
Explore more quotes by Bertrand Russell

"Cynicism such as one finds very frequently among the most highly educated young men and women of the West results from the combination of comfort and powerlessness."

"It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this."

"The whole conception of 'sin' is one which I find very puzzling, doubtless owing to my sinful nature."

"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."

"Grammar and ordinary language are bad guides to metaphysics. A great book might be written showing the influence of syntax on philosophy."

"I hate the world and almost all the people in it. I hate the Labour Congress and the journalists who send men to be slaughtered, and the fathers who feel a smug pride when their sons are killed, and even the pacifists who keep saying human nature is essentially good, in spite of all the daily proofs to the contrary. I hate the planet and the human race-I am ashamed to belong to such a species."

"Both in thought and in feeling, even though time be real, to realise the unimportance of time is the gate of wisdom."
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