A Quote by Bertrand Russell

A widespread belief is more often likely to be foolish than sensible.

Bertrand Russell

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Belief Foolish Likely More Often Sensible Than Widespread

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Bertrand Russell
British - Celebrity
May 18, 1872 - February 2, 1970

The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widely spread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.

Bertrand Russell

I am far more provoked at being thought foolish by foolish people, than pleased at being thought sensible by sensible people; and the average proportion of the numbers of each is not to my advantage.

John Ruskin

I often arrive at quite sensible ideas and judgements, on the spur of the moment. It is when I stop to think that I become foolish.

Jerome K. Jerome

My guess is that nuclear weapons will be used sometime in the next hundred years, but that their use is much more likely to be small and limited than widespread and unconstrained.

Herman Kahn

The more the fruits of knowledge become accessible to men, the more widespread is the decline of religious belief.

Sigmund Freud

Only if you are afraid of looking foolish, and I would have looked far more foolish if I persisted with an erroneous belief.' Eragon said. Why, little one, you just said something wise!'Saphira teased.

Christopher Paolini

I speak "with absolute certainty" only so far as my own personal belief is concerned. Those who have not the same warrant for their belief as I have, would be very credulous and foolish to accept it on blind faith. Nor does the writer believe any more than her correspondent and his friends in any "authority" let alone "divine revelation"!

H. P. Blavatsky

It is necessary to guard ourselves from thinking that the practice of the scientific method enlarges the powers of the human mind. Nothing is more flatly contradicted by experience than the belief that a man distinguished in one or even more departments of science, is more likely to think sensibly about ordinary affairs than anyone else.

Wilfred Trotter

I am ready to reject all belief and reasoning, and can look upon no opinion even as more probable or likely than another.

David Hume

Properly conducted scientific studies . . . give us a pretty good idea of when something is likely to be correct. To me, pretty good is a linguistic statistic that falls somewhere in between more likely than not and beyond a reasonable doubt, et avoides the pitfalls arising from the belief in complete objectivity.

Robert A. Burton

A rough rule in life is that an organization foolish in one way in dealing with a complex system is all too likely to be foolish in another.

Charlie Munger

First loves are not necessarily more foolish than others; but the chances are certainly against them. Proximity of time or place, a variety of accidental circumstances more than the essential merits of the object, often produce what is called first love.

Maria Edgeworth

People who think and say we more often than I are a lot more likely to succeed.

Richard Branson

Believing is easier than thinking; that's why there will always be more believers than thinkers. However, the results of god-belief are often far more mental trials than those of nonbelief. It is quite difficult to ascertain the wishes of an invisible being.

Mark Thomas

Men are all right for friends, but as soon as you marry them they turn into cranky old fathers, even the wild ones. They begin to tell you what's sensible and what's foolish, and want you to stick at home all the time. I prefer to be foolish when I feel like it, and be accountable to nobody.

Willa Cather

Often the adult book is not for you, not yet, or will only be for you when you're ready. But sometimes you will read it anyway, and you will take from it whatever you can. Then, perhaps, you will come back to it when you're older, and you will find the book has changed because you have changed as well, and the book is wiser, or more foolish, because you are wiser or more foolish than you were as a child.

Neil Gaiman

A Quote by Bertrand Russell

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