Bertrand Russell Quotes

If you have high IQ, you're really good at finding post-hoc arguments to support your feelings of truthiness.

Men can reason themselves into almost any sort of opinion if they are so inclined.

Most of our so-called reasoning consists in finding arguments for going on believing as we already do.

Metaphysics is the finding of bad reasons for what we believe upon instinct; but to find these reasons is no less an instinct.

Every man prefers belief to the exercise of judgment.

It is not to be forgotten that what we call rational grounds for our beliefs are often extremely irrational attempts to justify our instincts.

People everywhere enjoy believing things that they know are not true. It spares them the ordeal of thinking for themselves and taking responsibility for what they know.

People believe what they want to believe.

Knowledge consists in understanding the evidence that establishes the fact, not in the belief that it is a fact.

Those who cavalierly reject the Theory of Evolution, as not adequately supported by facts, seem quite to forget that their own theory is supported by no facts at all. Like the majority of men who are born to a given belief, they demand the most rigorous proof of any adverse belief, but assume that their own needs none.

The habit of an opinion often leads to the complete conviction of its truth, it hides the weaker parts of it, and makes us incapable of accepting the proofs against it.

Another source of fallacy is the vicious circle of illusions which consists on the one hand of believing what we see, and on the other in seeing what we believe.

… people reject the validity of a scientific source because its conclusion contradicted their deeply held views.

Do not believe just because you want to believe.

Just because something doesn't confirm your existing beliefs does not mean it's a hoax.

If two things don't fit, but you believe both of them, thinking that somewhere, hidden, there must be a third thing that connects them, that's credulity.

Logic: an instrument used for bolstering a prejudice.

Prejudice is not bigotry or superstition, although prejudice sometimes may degenerate into these. Prejudice is pre-judgment, the answer with which intuition and ancestral consensus of opinion supply a man when he lacks either time or knowledge to arrive at a decision predicated upon pure reason.

Men first make up their minds (and the smaller the mind the sooner made up), and then seek for the reasons; and if they chance to stumble upon a good reason, of course they do not reject it. But though they are right, they are only right by chance.

Zealous men are ever displaying to you the strength of their belief, while judicious men are showing you the grounds of it.

The mind can assert anything and pretend it has proved it. My beliefs I test on my body, on my intuitional consciousness, and when I get a response there, then I accept.

I became a sceptic of one way of seeing the world. And I think it is what started me in my awareness that any worldview is superstitious.

Reason is the servant of instinct.

Man is not logical and his intellectual history is a record of mental reserves and compromises. He hangs on to what he can in his old beliefs even when he is compelled to surrender their logical basis.

The discovery of truth is prevented more effectively, not by the false appearance things present and which mislead into error, not directly by weakness of the reasoning powers, but by preconceived opinion, by prejudice.