Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.
Interpretation
Humans inherently seek beliefs, filling gaps with poor choices when better options are absent.
This quote by Bertrand Russell highlights the human tendency to seek out beliefs and explanations, even when they are based on insufficient or flawed reasoning. Russell suggests that in the absence of strong evidence or rational grounds, people are prone to accept questionable or unfounded beliefs, which reflects a fundamental aspect of human nature and our search for understanding in an uncertain world.
In practice
In a discussion about misinformation, this quote underscores the need for critical evaluation of beliefs.
St. Paul introduced an entirely novel view of marriage, that it existed primarily to prevent the sin of fornication. It is just as if one were to maintain that the sole reason for baking bread is to prevent people from stealing cake.
Freedom comes only to those who no longer ask of life that it shall yield them any of those personal goods that are subject to the mutations of time.
Of these austerer virtues the love of truth is the chief, and in mathematics, more than elsewhere, the love of truth may find encouragement for waning faith. Every great study is not only an end in itself, but also a means of creating and sustaining a lofty habit of mind; and this purpose should be kept always in view throughout the teaching and learning of mathematics.
At all times, except when a monarch could enforce his will, war has been facilitated by the fact that vigorous males, confident of victory, enjoyed it, while their females admired them for their prowess.
Moreover, the attitude that one ought to believe such and such a proposition, independently of the question whether there is evidence in its favor, is an attitude which produces hostility to evidence and causes us to close our minds to every fact that does not suit our prejudices.
Extreme hopes are born from extreme misery.
You should stop searching for phrases and chasing after words. Take the backward step and turn the light inward. Your body-mind of itself will drop off and your original face will appear. If you want to attain just this, immediately practice just this.
Intolerance betrays want of faith in one's cause.
Whatever may be open to disagreement, there is one act of evil that may not, the act that no man may commit against others and no man may sanction or forgive. So long as men desire to live together, no man may initiate—do you hear me? no man may start—the use of physical force against others.
Let's build a country of opportunities, where everybody is equal before the law and where the rules of the game are honest and transparent, and the same for everyone.
Whatever we, as prospective participants unaware of our specific features, would desire society to be like is what, morally speaking, we ought to institute.
At bottom every man knows well enough that he is a unique being, only once on this earth; and by no extraordinary chance will such a marvelously picturesque piece of diversity in unity as he is, ever be put together a second time.
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