PERSONAL GROWTH WITHOUT ILLUSIONS!
Bertrand Russell
Philosopher, Essayist, Historian, Mathematician and Logician
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, was that kind of brilliant mind who seemed to have been born just to poke at the status quo with a sarcastic smile on his face.
Born in 1872 in the UK, he was a philosopher, mathematician, logician, pacifist, activist, writer and, basically, a multitasker avant la lettre. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1950, not for writing sugary novels, but for managing to make philosophy sound like a good bar conversation between geniuses. Co-author of the dense (and somewhat sadistic) Principia Mathematica, he also found time to criticise wars, challenge religions and get arrested for protesting - because keeping quiet was never his strong suit.
He died in 1970, leaving behind a pile of ideas that still make many people frown and say: ‘this guy was ahead of his time’. And he was.