Bertrand Russell

When the intensity of emotional conviction subsides, a man who is in the habit of reasoning will search for logical grounds in favour of the belief which he finds in himself.

Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.

Against my will, in the course of my travels, the belief that everything worth knowing was known at Cambridge gradually wore off. In this respect my travels were very useful to me.

I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.

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

The degree of one's emotions varies inversely with one's knowledge of the facts.

Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education.

Order, unity, and continuity are human inventions, just as truly as catalogues and encyclopedias.

Both in thought and in feeling, even though time be real, to realise the unimportance of time is the gate of wisdom.

A truer image of the world, I think, is obtained by picturing things as entering into the stream of time from an eternal world outside, than from a view which regards time as the devouring tyrant of all that is.

It is possible that mankind is on the threshold of a golden age; but, if so, it will be necessary first to slay the dragon that guards the door, and this dragon is religion.

The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.