Bertrand Russell Quotes

Only the fools are certain and assured.

The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt. Even those of the intelligent who believe that they have a nostrum are too individualistic to combine with other intelligent men from whom they differ on minor points.

I May Be Wrong but I Doubt It.

I wish I was as cocksure of anything as Tom Macaulay is of everything.

If I am fool, it is, at least, a doubting one; and I envy no one the certainty of his self-approved wisdom.

Doubt is not below knowledge, but above it.

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

Who knows most, doubts most.

Doubt is the offspring of knowledge: the savage never doubts at all.

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.

Doubt is not an agreeable condition, but certainty is an absurd one.

We'd all like to be certain of what we know, but I think the most important question is to ask yourself do you really know what you know?

I am very cautious of people who are absolutely right, especially when they are vehemently so.

A mind that questions everything, unless strong enough to bear the weight of its ignorance, risks questioning itself and being engulfed in doubt.

Oh, you should never, never doubt what nobody is sure about.

All that belongs to human understanding, in this deep ignorance and obscurity, is to be sceptical, or at least cautious, and not to admit of any hypothesis whatever, much less of any which is supported by no appearance of probability.

It is the dull man who is always sure, and the sure man who is always dull.

I wish I were dumber so I could be more certain about my opinions. It looks fun.

The fruitfulness of our lives depends in large measure in our ability to doubt our own words and to question the value of our own work. The man who completely trusts his own estimate of himself is doomed to sterility.

If there is one class of person I have never quite trusted, it is a man who knows no doubt.

A man who has humility will have acquired in the last reaches of his beliefs the saving doubt of his own certainty.

Certainty is the enemy of mankind. If you're certain about everything, you have the Inquisition, you have Nazis and you have - that certainty is something to be guarded about.

What I learned is that it's arrogant to be certain of anything. The world is a complex place and only idiots or assholes think they know it all.

I have teken refuge in the doctrine that advises one not to seek tranquility in certainty but in permanently suspended judgement.

When people are least sure, they are often most dogmatic.