The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt. – Bertrand Russell
The observer, when he seems to himself to be observing a stone, is really, if physics is to be believed, observing the effects of the stone upon himself. – Bertrand Russell
Man needs, for his happiness, not only the enjoyment of this or that, but hope and enterprise and change. – Bertrand Russell
Ethics is in origin the art of recommending to others the sacrifices required for cooperation with oneself. – Bertrand Russell
Genuine ignorance is… profitable because it is likely to be accompanied by humility, curiosity, and open mindedness; whereas ability to repeat catch-phrases, cant terms, familiar propositions, gives the conceit of learning and coats the mind with varnish waterproof to new ideas. – John Dewey
History shows that there is nothing so easy to enslave and nothing so hard to emancipate as ignorance, hence it becomes the double enemy of civilization. By its servility it is the prey of tyranny, and by its credulity it is the foe of enlightenment. – Lemuel K. Washburn, Is The Bible Worth Reading And Other Essays