Bertrand Russell Quotes

The demand for certainty is one which is natural to man, but is nevertheless an intellectual vice.

What is important is that one utilizes one's intellect and not to be 100 percent sure about one's convictions. One should always leave room for doubt.

Not to be absolutely certain is, I think, one of the essential things in rationality.

I'm very careful not to have ideas, because they're inaccurate.

We have to live today by what truth we can get today and be ready tomorrow to call it falsehood.

Try to keep your mind open to possibilities and your mouth closed on matters that you don't know about. Limit your 'always' and your 'nevers.'

Never stop paying attention to things. Never make your mind up finally. Do not hold beliefs.

I used to think there was a scientific way to do things. Like a proper way to answer a question or that kind of stuff. It's like, there's not! There's not a method, there's not a science to it.

The older I get, the less I know. By that I mean the less I am sure of. I view people with strong opinions on the big stuff with distrust. I don't think we should have certain certainties on faith and politics; I think we should be open-minded.

I don't necessarily agree with everything I say.

Part of the scientific temperament is this tolerance for holding multiple hypotheses in mind at the same time.

Dogmatism and skepticism are both, in a sense, absolute philosophies; one is certain of knowing, the other of not knowing. What philosophy should dissipate is certainty, whether of knowledge or ignorance.

I don't have to know an answer. I don't feel frightened not knowing things.

The 21st century does not like tidy minds.

Having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise.

It may feel good to think you're right. But it's better to allow the possibility that you're wrong.

I think it's very important to keep in the back of your mind: 'What if I'm wrong?'

I'm not ideological. I think sometimes when people are ideological, the world's a lot easier. Because it falls into either right or wrong, or black or white, or whatever. To me, I'm still trying to figure out a lot of things.

In the course of your education you have always been taught to look for the right answer - but you must also know that in life, sometimes the right answer is that there isn't one.

Nothing was or is farther from my intentions, than to enlist myself as the champion of a fixed opinion, where I have only expressed doubt.

You see, one thing is, I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of certainty about different things... It doesn't frighten me.

It is incredible that only idiots are absolutely sure of salvation. It is incredible that the more brain you have the less your chance is. There can be no danger in honest thought, and if the world ever advances beyond what it is to-day, it must be led by men who express their real opinions.

Those who lack all idea that it is possible to be wrong can learn nothing except know-how.

One of the hardest tasks as a human being is knowing when to keep an open mind, and when not to.

Any belief that puts itself beyond doubt nurtures its own collapse.