Truth Quotes by Bertrand Russell

This illustrates an important truth, namely, that the worse your logic, the more interesting the consequences to which it gives rise.

— Bertrand Russell

Be scrupulously truthful, even if the truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.

— Bertrand Russell

Truth is for the gods; from our human point of view, it is an ideal, towards which we can approximate, but which…

— Bertrand Russell

The most savage controversies are about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way.

— Bertrand Russell

Morally, a philosopher who uses his professional competence for anything except a disinterested search for truth is guilty of a kind of…

— Bertrand Russell

Mathematics is, I believe, the chief source of the belief in eternal and exact truth, as well as a sensible intelligible world.

— Bertrand Russell

Insight, untested and unsupported, is an uncertain guarantee of the truth.

— Bertrand Russell

“A philosopher who uses his professional competence for anything other except a disinterested search for truth is guilty of a kind of…

— Bertrand Russell

Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty-a beauty cold and austere ... yet sublimely pure and capable of stern…

— Bertrand Russell

No satisfaction based upon self-deception is solid, and however unpleasant the truth may be, it is better to face it once and…

— Bertrand Russell

Truth is a shining goddess, always veiled, always distant, never wholly approachable, but worthy of all the devotion of which the human…

— Bertrand Russell

“Some of the deepest truths are simple, when seen in the clearest light, and it takes a lucid intellect to grasp them…

— Bertrand Russell

Some 'advanced thinkers' are of the opinion that anyone who differs from the conventional opinion must be in the right. This is…

— Bertrand Russell

“This [Hegel's philosophy] illustrates an important truth, namely, that the worse your logic, the more interesting the consequences to which it gives…

— Bertrand Russell

When you are studying any matter or considering any philosophy, ask yourself only: what are the facts, and what is the truth…

— Bertrand Russell

We shall say that we have acquaintance with anything of which we are directly aware, without the intermediary of any process of…

— Bertrand Russell

“...suggest four general maxims, which will prove an adequate preventive of persecution mania if their truth is sufficiently realized. The first is:…

— Bertrand Russell

I conclude that, while it is true that science cannot decide questions of value, that is because they cannot be intellectually decided…

— Bertrand Russell

If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is…

— Bertrand Russell

Of these austerer virtues the love of truth is the chief, and in mathematics, more than elsewhere, the love of truth may…

— Bertrand Russell

A religious creed differs from a scientific theory in claiming to embody eternal and absolutely certain truth, whereas science is always tentative,…

— Bertrand Russell

“The methods of increasing the degree of truth in our beliefs are well known; they consist in hearing all sides, trying to…

— Bertrand Russell

If life is to be fully human it must serve some end which seems, in some sense, outside human life, some end…

— Bertrand Russell

“During the war, the holders of power in all countries found it necessary to bribe the populations into cooperation by unusual concessions.…

— Bertrand Russell

“There is a widespread philosophical tendency towards the view which tells us that Man is the measure of all things, that truth…

— Bertrand Russell

“Two things are to be remembered: that a man whose opinions and theories are worth studying may be presumed to have had…

— Bertrand Russell

“The skill of the politician consists in guessing what people can be brought to think advantageous to themselves; the skill of the…

— Bertrand Russell

It is not by delusion, however exalted, that mankind can prosper, but only by unswerving courage in the pursuit of truth.

— Bertrand Russell

“The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way.”

— Bertrand Russell

Of all evils of war the greatest is the purely spiritual evil: the hatred, the injustice, the repudiation of truth, the artificial…

— Bertrand Russell

There are infinite possibilities of error, and more cranks take up fashionable untruths than unfashionable truths.

— Bertrand Russell

The fact that a belief has a good moral effect upon a man is no evidence whatsoever in favor of its truth.

— Bertrand Russell

Politics is largely governed by sententious platitudes which are devoid of truth

— Bertrand Russell

“When a man tells you he knows the exact truth about anything, you are safe in inferring he is an inexact man.”

— Bertrand Russell

When a man tells you that he knows the exact truth about anything you are safe in inferring that he is an…

— Bertrand Russell

Ironclads and Maxim guns must be the ultimate arbiters of metaphysical truth.

— Bertrand Russell

Heretical views arise when the truth is uncertain, and it is only when the truth is uncertain that censorship is invoked.

— Bertrand Russell

Education ought to foster the wish for truth, not the conviction that some particular creed is the truth.

— Bertrand Russell

Modern definitions of truth, such as those as pragmatism and instrumentalism, which are practical rather than contemplative, are inspired by industrialisation as…

— Bertrand Russell

As a lover of truth, the national propaganda of all the belligerent nations sickened me. As a lover of civilization, the return…

— Bertrand Russell