Quotes Library

October 13, 2025

The opinions that are held with passion are always those for which no good ground exists; indeed, the passion is the measure of the holder’s lack of rational conviction.

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970), British philosopher, mathematician, Sceptical Essays (1928), Jay p.316

In respect of what issues do you demonstrate rational conviction? Do you do so with passion? If so, does that make any difference when it comes to enlisting support for your conviction?

Spoken like a philosopher. But then, “cogito ergo sum” never started a revolution. All right, maybe a philosophic one. *The first principle of the philosophy of Rene Descartes: “I think, therefore I am”


More Quotes

April 16, 2025
To knock a thing down, especially if it is cocked at an arrogant angle, is a deep delight of the blood.
September 13, 2025
[Of the fictional British cabinet minister Jim Hacker] Years of political training and experience had taught him to use twenty words where one would do
January 27, 2025
[On hearing Lady Mountbatten’s anti-monarchical views] How easy it seems for a semi-royal millionnairess, who has exhausted all the pleasures of money and position, to turn almost Communist!
Page 95 of 122