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The fundamental defect of fathers is that they want their children to be a credit to them.

— Bertrand Russell

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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)

All Bertrand Russell quotes →

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If we could all pick our fathers there might be ten men on earth who would have families.

Esther Friesner Harlot's Ruse (1986)

He follows his father, but not with equal steps.

Virgil

He follows his father with unequal steps.

Virgil

Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him.

David

Attribution

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.