Quote

Even if we could be certain that one of the world's religions were perfectly true, given the sheer number of conflicting faiths on offer, every believer should expect damnation purely as a matter of probability.

Bertrand Russell

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Bertrand Russell
Age: 97 †
Born: 1872
Born: May 18
Died: 1970
Died: February 2
Analytic Philosopher
Autobiographer
Epistemologist
Essayist
Journalist
Logician
Mathematician
Metaphysician
Peace Activist
Philosopher
Tryleg
Bertrand Arthur William Russell
Russell
Bertrand Russell
3rd Earl Russell
Bertrand Russell
Earl Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell
3rd Earl Russell
Matter
Expect
Damnation
Even
Offers
Probability
Every
Number
Purely
World
Numbers
Sheer
Religion
Religions
Given
Perfectly
True
Offer
Conflicting
Certain
Believer
Faiths

More quotes by Bertrand Russell

Image
I wish to propose for the reader's favourable consideration a doctrine which may, I fear, appear wildly paradoxical and subversive. The doctrine in question is this: that it is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing it true.
Bertrand Russell
Image
Undoubtedly the desire for food has been and still is one of the main causes of political events.
Bertrand Russell
Image
In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.
Bertrand Russell
Image
We may often do as we please - but we cannot please as we please.
Bertrand Russell
Image
An Honest politician will not be tolerated by a democracy unless he is very stupid ... because only a very stupid man can honestly share the prejudices of more than half the nation.
Bertrand Russell
Image
We are condemned to kill time, thus we die bit by bit. - Octavio Paz The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.
Bertrand Russell
Image
For love of domination we must substitute equality for love of victory we must substitute justice for brutality we must substitute intelligence for competition we must substitute cooperation. We must learn to think of the human race as one family.
Bertrand Russell
Image
Inferences of Science and Common Sense differ from those of deductive logic and mathematics in a very important respect, namely, when the premises are true and the reasoning correct, the conclusion is only probable.
Bertrand Russell
Image
It would now be technically possible to unify the world, abolish war and poverty altogether, if men desired their own happiness more than the misery of their enemies.
Bertrand Russell
Image
[There has been] every kind of cruelty practiced upon all sorts of people in the name of religion.
Bertrand Russell
Image
Advocates of capitalism are very apt to appeal to the sacred principles of liberty, which are embodied in one maxim: The fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the unfortunate.
Bertrand Russell
Image
Calculus required continuity, and continuity was supposed to require the infinitely little but nobody could discover what the infinitely little might be.
Bertrand Russell
Image
Human nature is so constructed that it gives affection most readily to those who seem least to demand it.
Bertrand Russell
Image
In detective stories . . . I alternately identify myself with the murderer and the huntsman-detective, but . . . there are those to which this vicarious outlet is too mild.
Bertrand Russell
Image
The human race may well become extinct before the end of the century. Speaking as a mathematician, I should say the odds are about three to one against survival.
Bertrand Russell
Image
We have almost reached the point where praise of rationality is held to mark a man as an old fogey regrettably surviving from a bygone age.
Bertrand Russell
Image
For the learning of every virtue there is an appropriate discipline, and for the learning of suspended judgment the best discipline is philosophy.
Bertrand Russell
Image
A hallucination is a fact, not an error what is erroneous is a judgment based upon it.
Bertrand Russell
Image
The essence of education is that it is a change effected in the organism to satisfy the operator.
Bertrand Russell
Image
All definite knowledge - so I should contend - belongs to science all dogma as to what surpasses definite knowledge belongs to theology. But between theology and science there is a No Man's Land, exposed to attack by both sides this No Man's Land is philosophy.
Bertrand Russell