Bertrand Russell Doubt Quotations

The universe may have a purpose, but nothing we know suggests that, if so, this purpose has any similarity to ours.

Not to be absolutely certain is, I think, one of the essential things in rationality.

Is there any knowledge in the world which is so certain that no reasonable man could doubt it?

The problem with the wise is they are so filled with doubts while the dull are so certain.

Be isolated, be ignored, be attacked, be in doubt, be frightened, but do not be silenced.

There's a Bible on that shelf there. But I keep it next to Voltaire - poison and antidote.

It is odd that neither the Church nor modern public opinion condemns petting, provided it stops short at a certain point. At what point sin begins is a matter as to which casuists differ. One eminently orthodox Catholic divine laid it down that a confessor may fondle a nun's breasts, provided he does it without evil intent. But I doubt whether modern authorities would agree with him on this point.

Francis Bacon, a man who rose to eminence by betraying his friends, asserted, no doubt as one of the ripe lessons of experience, that ""knowledge is power

Tobacco . . . is not prohibited in the Scriptures, though, as Samuel Butler points out, St. Paul would no doubt have denounced it if he had known of it.

Philosophy, though unable to tell us with certainty what is the true answer to the doubts which it raises, is able to suggest many possibilities which enlarge our thoughts and free them from the tyranny of custom.