Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRSwas a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, writer, social critic, political activist and Nobel laureate. At various points in his life he considered himself a liberal, a socialist, and a pacifist, but he also admitted that he had "never been any of these things, in any profound sense". He was born in Monmouthshire into one of the most prominent aristocratic families in the United Kingdom...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth18 May 1872
All knowledge, we feel, must be built up upon our instinctive beliefs; and if these are rejected, nothing is left.
Faith: a firm belief for which there is no evidence.
Our beliefs are, however, often contrary to fact.
A fanatical belief in democracy makes democratic institutions impossible.
Belief in a Divine mission is one of the many forms of certainty that have afflicted the human race.
The reformative effect of punishment is a belief that dies hard, chiefly I think, because it is so satisfying to our sadistic impulses.
Emphatic and reiterated assertion, especially during childhood, produces in most people a belief so firm as to have a hold even over the unconscious.
A widespread belief is more often likely to be foolish than sensible.
I am delighted to know that Principia Mathematica can now be done by machinery. . . I am quite willing to believe that anything in deductive logic can be done by machinery.
Mathematics is, I believe, the chief source of the belief in eternal and exact truth, as well as a sensible intelligible world.
The more intense has been the religion of any period and the more profound has been the dogmatic belief, the greater has been the cruelty and the worse has been the state of affairs.
When one admits that nothing is certain one must, I think, also admit that some things are much more nearly certain than others.
All movements go too far.
I resolved from the beginning of my quest that I would not be misled by sentiment and desire into beliefs for which there was no good evidence.