Bertrand Russell Quotes About Intelligence

• 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

  Education, Confidence, Wisdom

• So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.

  Bertrand Russell

  Death, Atheist, Religion

  Bertrand Russell (2013). “Education and the Social Order”, p.73, Routledge

• A stupid man's report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand.

  Bertrand Russell

  Clever, Smart, Stupid

• The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.

  Bertrand Russell

  Inspirational, Success, Confidence

• 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

• 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)

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

  Bertrand Russell

  Inspirational, Government, Intelligence

  Bertrand Russell (2004). “Sceptical Essays”, p.2, Psychology Press

• Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man, and our politicians take advantage of this prejudice by pretending to be even more stupid than nature has made them.

  Bertrand Russell

  Clever, Stupid, Men

  "New Hopes for a Changing World". Part III: Man and Himself, Ch. 16: Ideas Which Have Become Obsolete, p. 158. Book by Bertrand Russell, 1951.

• I am sometimes shocked by the blasphemies of those who think themselves pious.

  Bertrand Russell

  Thinking, Intelligence, Sometimes

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Unpopular Essays”, p.73, Routledge

• There is no excuse for deceiving children. And when, as must happen in conventional families, they find that their parents have lied, they lose confidence in them and feel justified in lying to them.

  Bertrand Russell

  Education, Children, Lying

  Bertrand Russell (1957). “Why I Am Not a Christian: And Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects”, p.177, Simon and Schuster

• Of course not. After all, I may be wrong.

  Bertrand Russell

  Intelligence, May, Courses

  Attributed in "The Times book of quotations" by Philip Howard, (p. 84), 2000.

• Every living thing is a sort of imperialist, seeking to transform as much as possible of its environment into itself . . . When we compare the (present) human population of the globe with . . . that of former times, we see that "chemical imperialism" has been . . . the main end to which human intelligence has been devoted.

  Bertrand Russell

  Life, Intelligence, Population

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