Bertrand Russell was a wise and funny atheist.

[RichardParticipant]

Here are a few quotes from Bertrand Russell British philosopher, logician, mathematician,historian, and social critic.

If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.

 

Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.

And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence

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.

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

Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.

To teach how to live without certainty, and yet without being paralyzed by hesitation, is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age, can still do for those who study it.

One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important.

A stupid man’s report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand.

 

And in the spirit of TLS

One should as a rule respect public opinion in so far as is necessary to avoid starvation and to keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny, and is likely to interfere with happiness in all kinds of ways.

[cDevonParticipant]

Can I copy this to my FB page? This is fantastic.

 

[RichardParticipant]

@cDevon Can I copy this to my FB page? This is fantastic.

 

You can copy the text and post it as an update or you can get them from this source.

 

http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/17854.Bertrand_Russell

[RichardParticipant]

One of the reasons that I abandoned the idea that religion would be considered good because it is a comfort is articulated well in this quote from Bertrand Russell.

“People will tell us that without the consolations of religion they would be intolerably unhappy. So far as this is true, it is a coward’s argument. Nobody but a coward would consciously choose to live in a fool’s paradise. When a man suspects his wife of infidelity, he is not thought the better of for shutting his eyes to the evidence. And I cannot see why ignoring evidence should be contemptible in one case and admirable in the other.” ― Bertrand Russell

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