Bertrand Russell Quotes About Mistakes

• Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake.

  Bertrand Russell

  Mistake, People, Dogma

  Bertrand Russell, John G. Slater, Peter Köllner (1997). “Last Philosophical Testament: 1943-68”, p.547, Psychology Press

• Thinking you know when in fact you don't is a fatal mistake, to which we are all prone

  Bertrand Russell

  Mistake, Thinking, Facts

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.66, Routledge

• Aristotle could have avoided the mistake of thinking that women have fewer teeth than men, by the simple device of asking Mrs. Aristotle to keep her mouth open while he counted.

  Bertrand Russell

  Mistake, Women, Science

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.66, Routledge

• Dr. Arnold . . . the admired reformer of public schools, came across some cranks who thought it a mistake to flog boys. Anyone reading his outburst of furious indignation against this opinion will be forced to the conclusion that he enjoyed inflicting floggings.

  Bertrand Russell

  Mistake, Reading, School

  Bertrand Russell (1996). “Unpopular Essays”, p.161, Psychology Press

• The practice of inhibiting impulses, which is to a great extent necessary to civilized life, makes mistakes easier, by preventing experience of the actions to which a desire would otherwise lead, and by often causing the inhibited impulses themselves to be unnoticed or quickly forgotten.

  Bertrand Russell

  Mistake, Practice, Desire

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “The Analysis of Mind: Top Philosophy Collections”, p.40, 谷月社

• In considering irregular appearances, there are certain very natural mistakes which must be avoided.

  Bertrand Russell

  Mistake, Appearance, Natural

  Bertrand Russell (2016). “The Analysis of Mind”, p.187, Bertrand Russell

• Science, by itself, cannot supply us with an ethic. It can show us how to achieve a given end, and it may show us that some ends cannot be achieved. But among ends that can be achieved our choice must be decided by other than purely scientific considerations. If a man were to say, "I hate the human race, and I think it would be a good thing if it were exterminated," we could say, "Well, my dear sir, let us begin the process with you." But this is hardly argument, and no amount of science could prove such a man mistaken.

  Bertrand Russell

  Hate, Mistake, Science

• In the higher walks of politics the same sort of thing occurs. The statesman who has gradually concentrated all power within himself ... may have had anything but a public motive... The phrases which are customary on the platform and in the Party Press have gradually come to him to seem to express truths, and he mistakes the rhetoric of partisanship for a genuine analysis of motives... He retires from the world after the world has retired from him.

  Bertrand Russell

  Truth, Mistake, Party

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