Bertrand Russell Quotes

If children were taught to question and think through their beliefs, instead of being taught the superior virtue of faith without question, it is a good bet that there would be no suicide bombers.

Faith is not uprooted by dialectic proof; it must already be deeply shaken by other causes to be unable to withstand the shock of argument.

Faith is a poison that paralyzes the mind. In all the days of your life, seek knowledge!

The truth is that Christian theology, like every other theology, is not only opposed to the scientific spirit; it is also opposed to all other attempts at rational thinking.

Religion was always an easy class. All you had to do was suspend the logic and reasoning you were taught in all the other classes.

I believe in God, but I don't think you have to go crazy to prove it.

We have to start with the little babies who are born now, socialize them in freedom and critical thinking. We don't have to throw away their faith. People confuse the two, thinking if you are enlightened that means apostasy. It doesn't.

Faith is a function of the heart. It must be enforced by reason. The two are not antagonistic as some think. The more intense one's faith is, the more it whets one's reason. When faith becomes blind it dies.

I shall not convert you at the end of my argument. I think the argument is sound. I hold that belief in God is not merely as reasonable as other belief, or even a little or infinitely more probably true than other belief; I hold rather that unless you believe in God you can logically believe in nothing else.

Knowledge humanizes mankind, and reason inclines to mildness; but prejudices eradicate every tender disposition.

I think the attempt to defend belief can unsettle it, in fact, because there is always an inadequacy in argument about ultimate things.

For I think belief in God is not a matter of reason at all; I think it finally is a matter of love.

Faith is the surrender of the mind; it's the surrender of reason, it's the surrender of the only thing that makes us different from other mammals. It's our need to believe, and to surrender our skepticism and our reason, our yearning to discard that and put all our trust or faith in someone or something, that is the sinister thing to me. Of all the supposed virtues, faith must be the most overrated.

I think fundamentally, the question of whether or not Christianity makes sense - whether it withstands scrutiny, whether the evidence supports it or hurts it - always comes down to the Resurrection.

A good education instills in you the intuitive comprehension - it becomes unconscious and reflexive - that you just don't think certain things, things that are threatening to power interests.

My own opinion is that belief is the death of intelligence. As soon as one believes a doctrine of any sort, or assumes certitude, one stops thinking about that aspect of existence.

Reason is one thing and faith is another and reason can as little be made a substitute for faith, as faith can be made a substitute for reason.

Faith is a wonderful thing, but doubt gets you an education.

I think the greatest thing in the world is to believe in people.

I have one request: may I never use my reason against truth.

If faith is what you have to go on, if faith is the link between your beliefs and the world at large, your beliefs are very likely to be wrong. Beliefs can be right or wrong. If you believe you can fly, that belief is only true if indeed you can fly. Somebody who thinks he can fly, and is wrong about it, will eventually discover there's a problem with his view of the world.

I can only regard with bewilderment an educated man who is also religious

There is more religion in men's science, than there is science in their religion.

I prefer to think of faith, as Coleridge says of poetry, not as the taking up of belief but as "the willing suspension of disbelief". . . a willingness to be open, to explore, to investigate.

You could reason with someone who was halfway educated and appeal to his intelligence, but I felt helpless in the face of utter stupidity.