Bertrand Russell Quotes About Persecution

• 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.

• 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

• 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

• Religions that teach brotherly love have been used as an excuse for persecution, and our profoundest scientific insight is made into a means of mass destruction.

  Bertrand Russell

  Hippie, Mean, Mass Destruction

  Bertrand Russell, John G. Slater, Peter Köllner (1997). “Last Philosophical Testament: 1943-68”, p.87, Psychology Press

• The argument against the persecution of opinion does not depend upon what the excuse for persecution may be. The argument is that we none of us know all truth, that the discovery of new truth is promoted by free discussion and rendered very difficult by suppression.

  Bertrand Russell

  Truth, Discovery, Doe

  Bertrand Russell (1935). “Religion and science”

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