William James used to preach the "will-to-believe." For my part, I should wish to preach the "will-to-doubt." None of our beliefs are quite true; all at least have a penumbra of vagueness and error. What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.

Bertrand Russell

Categorized in : Believe Opposites Errors

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.

Bertrand Russell

confidence wisdom education

The first step in a fascist movement is the combination under an energetic leader of a number of men who possess more than the average share of leisure, brutality, and stupidity. The next step is to fascinate fools and muzzle the intelligent, by emotional excitement on the one hand and terrorism on the other.

Bertrand Russell

emotional intelligent men

Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.

Bertrand Russell

fear motivational inspirational

Religion is based ... mainly upon fear ... fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death. Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand in hand. My own view on religion is that of Lucretius. I regard it as a disease born of fear and as a source of untold misery to the human race.

Bertrand Russell

atheist race views

Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education.

Bertrand Russell

stupid education school

Love is wise; hatred is foolish. In this world, which is getting more and more closely interconnected, we have to learn to tolerate each other, we have to learn to put up with the fact that some people say things that we don't like. We can only live together in that way. But if we are to live together, and not die together, we must learn a kind of charity and a kind of tolerance, which is absolutely vital to the continuation of human life on this planet.

Bertrand Russell

wise love-is people

If an opinion contrary to your own makes you angry, that is a sign that you are subsciously aware of having no good reason for thinking as you do. [...] The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way. Persecution is used in theology, not in arithmetic, because in arithmetic there is knowledge, but in theology there is only opinion. So whenever you find yourself getting angry about a difference of opinion, be on your guard; you will probably find, on examination, that your belief is going beyond what the evidence warrants.

Bertrand Russell

finding-yourself differences thinking

The secret to happiness is to face the fact that the world is horrible.

Bertrand Russell

secret happiness world

The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.

Bertrand Russell

happiness inspirational life

When you want to teach children to think, you begin by treating them seriously when they are little, giving them responsibilities, talking to them candidly, providing privacy and solitude for them, and making them readers and thinkers of significant thoughts from the beginning. That’s if you want to teach them to think.

Bertrand Russell

teaching education children

No great achievement is possible without persistent work.

Bertrand Russell

persistence perseverance achievement

The best life is the one in which the creative impulses play the largest part and the possessive impulses the smallest.

Bertrand Russell

creative life-is play

Science does not aim at establishing immutable truths and eternal dogmas; its aim is to approach the truth by successive approximations, without claiming that at any stage final and complete accuracy has been achieved.

Bertrand Russell

dogma finals doe

Few people can be happy unless they hate some other person, nation, or creed.

Bertrand Russell

depressing hate happiness

One should as a rule respect public opinion in so far as is necessary to avoid starvation and to keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny.

Bertrand Russell

public-opinion respect humor

An Honest politician will not be tolerated by a democracy unless he is very stupid ... because only a very stupid man can honestly share the prejudices of more than half the nation.

Bertrand Russell

cynical stupid men

To understand the actual world as it is, not as we should wish it to be, is the beginning of wisdom.

Bertrand Russell

wisdom wish world

We are faced with the paradoxical fact that education has become one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of thought.

Bertrand Russell

education philosophy art

Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken.

Bertrand Russell

intelligence government inspirational

I believe four ingredients are necessary for happiness: health, warm personal relations, sufficient means to keep you from want, and successful work.

Bertrand Russell

successful mean believe