Bertrand Russell Quotes About Belief

• The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd.

  Bertrand Russell

  Education, Truth, Religion

  Marriage and Morals ch. 5 (1929)

• Cruel men believe in a cruel god and use their belief to excuse their cruelty. Only kindly men believe in a kindly god, and they would be kindly in any case.

  Bertrand Russell

  Believe, Men, Religion

  Bertrand Russell, John G. Slater, Peter Köllner (1997). “Last Philosophical Testament: 1943-68”, p.88, Psychology Press

• We may define "faith" as the firm belief in something for which there is no evidence. Where there is evidence, no one speaks of "faith." We do not speak of faith that two and two are four or that the earth is round. We only speak of faith when we wish to substitute emotion for evidence. The substitution of emotion for evidence is apt to lead to strife, since different groups, substitute different emotions.

  Bertrand Russell

  Two, Religion, Wish

  Bertrand Russell (1993). “The Quotable Bertrand Russell”

• 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

  Thinking, Differences, Finding Yourself

  "Unpopular Essays". Book by Bertrand Russell, p. 116, 1950.

• The fact that a belief has a good moral effect upon a man is no evidence whatsoever in favor of its truth.

  Bertrand Russell

  Men, Favors, Facts

  Bertrand Russell, John G. Slater, Peter Köllner (1997). “Last Philosophical Testament: 1943-68”, p.534, Psychology Press

• I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.

  Bertrand Russell

  Funny, Fear, Philosophy

  "Bertrand Russell's Greatest Paradox was His Faith" by Dan Delzell, www.christianpost.com. November 4, 2011.

• 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

  Believe, Errors, Opposites

  "Sceptical Essays". Book by Bertrand Russell, Ch. 12: Free Thought and Official Propaganda, 1928.

• Diet, injections, and injunctions will combine, from a very early age, to produce the sort of character and the sort of beliefs that the authorities consider desirable, and any serious criticism of the powers that be will become psychologically impossible. Even if all are miserable, all will believe themselves happy, because the government will tell them that they are so.

  Bertrand Russell

  Believe, Character, Government

  Bertrand Russell (2016). “The Impact of Science on Society”, p.45, Routledge

• One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important.

  Bertrand Russell

  Success, Work, Stress

  Conquest of Happiness (1930) ch. 5

• Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.

  Bertrand Russell

  Fear, Believe, Animal

  Unpopular Essays (1950) "Outline of Intellectual Rubbish"

• If you think your belief is based upon reason, you will support it by argument rather than by persecution, and will abandon it if the argument goes against you. But if your belief is based upon faith, you will realize that argument is useless, and will therefore resort to force either in the form of persecution or by stunting or distorting the minds of the young in what is called 'education.'

  Bertrand Russell

  Thinking, Support, Intelligence

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Bertrand Russell's Best”, p.59, Routledge

• Belief systems provide a programme which relieves the necessity of thought.

  Bertrand Russell

  Belief, Belief Systems, Programmes

• I am myself a dissenter from all known religions, and I hope that every kind of religious belief will die out.

  Bertrand Russell

  Religious, Atheist, Religion

  Bertrand Russell (2004). “Sceptical Essays”, p.125, Psychology Press

• The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widely spread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.

  Bertrand Russell

  Learning, Knowledge, Parenting

  Marriage and Morals ch. 5 (1929)

• Americans and Englishmen, when they become acquainted with the Balkans, feel an astonished contempt when they study the mutual enmities of Bulgarians and Serbs, of Hungarians and Rumanians. It is evident to them that these enmities are absurd and that the belief of each little nation in its own superiority has no objective basis. But most of them are quite unable to see that the national pride of a Great Power is essentially as unjustifiable as that of a little Balkan country.

  Bertrand Russell

  Country, Pride, Enmity

  Bertrand Russell (1996). “Unpopular Essays”, p.170, Psychology Press

• But if thought is to become the possession of many, not the privilege of the few, we must have done with fear. It is fear that holds men back - fear lest their cherished beliefs should prove delusions, fear lest the institutions by which they live should prove harmful, fear lest they themselves should prove less worthy of respect than they have supposed themselves to be.

  Bertrand Russell

  Men, Thinking, Done

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “Why Men Fight: A Method of Abolishing the International Duel”, p.96, Lulu Press, Inc

• It seems to me a fundamental dishonesty, and a fundamental treachery to intellectual integrity to hold a belief because you think it's useful and not because you think it's true.

  Bertrand Russell

  Integrity, Thinking, Intellectual

• All movements go too far.

  Bertrand Russell

  Change, Movement, Belief

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Unpopular Essays”, p.71, Routledge

• One of the symptoms of approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important, and that to take a holiday would bring all kinds of disaster. If I were a medical man, I should prescribe a holiday to any patient who considered his or her work important.

  Bertrand Russell

  Work, Holiday, Men

  'The Conquest of Happiness' (1930) ch. 5

• Dogma demands authority, rather than intelligent thought, as the source of opinion; it requires persecution of heretics and hostility to unbelievers; it asks of its disciples that they should inhibit natural kindliness in favor of systematic hatred.

  Bertrand Russell

  Wisdom, Intelligent, Hatred

  Bertrand Russell, John G. Slater, Peter Köllner (1997). “Last Philosophical Testament: 1943-68”, p.403, Psychology Press

• The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it.

  Bertrand Russell

  Philosophy, Believe, Simple

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Philosophy of Logical Atomism”, p.20, Routledge

• [Man] ... his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labour of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins.

  Bertrand Russell

  Inspiration, Science, Men

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays”, p.46, Booklassic

• It is not what the man of science believes that distinguishes him, but how and why he believes it. His beliefs are tentative, not dogmatic; they are based on evidence, not on authority or intuition.

  Bertrand Russell

  Believe, Men, Intuition

  Bertrand Russell (2008). “History of Western Philosophy”, p.527, Simon and Schuster

• You find this curious fact, that the more intense has been the religion of any period and more profound has been the dogmatic belief, the greater has been the cruelty and the worse has been the state of affairs. In the so called age of faith, when men really did believe the Christian religion in all its completeness, there was the Inquisition, with its tortures; there were millions of unfortunate women burnt as witches; and there was every kind of cruelty practised upon all sorts of people in the name of religion.

  Bertrand Russell

  Christian, Believe, Men

• When the intensity of emotional conviction subsides, a man who is in the habit of reasoning will search for logical grounds in favour of the belief which he finds in himself.

  Bertrand Russell

  Men, Emotional, Favour

  Bertrand Russell (2016). “Mysticism and Logic”, p.31, Bertrand Russell

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