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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 In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays (1935)

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More quotes by Bertrand Russell

Often and often, a marriage hardly differs from prostitution except by being harder to escape from.

Proposed Roads To Freedom (1918)

Brief and powerless is Man's life; on him and all his race the slow, sure doom falls pitiless and dark.

A Free Man's Worship (1903)

My whole religion is this: do every duty, and expect no reward for it, either here or hereafter.

Greek Exercises (1888)

Every man would like to be God, if it were possible; some few find it difficult to admit the impossibility.

Power: A New Social Analysis (1938)

Ethics is in origin the art of recommending to others the sacrifices required for co-operation with oneself.

Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays (1918)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Bertrand Russell (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.