Human Knowledge Quotes

“The good life is inspired by love and guided by knowledge”
― Bertrand Russell, Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits

“As against solipsism it is to be said, in the first place, that it is psychologically impossible to believe, and is rejected in fact even by those who mean to accept it. I once received a letter from an eminent logician, Mrs. Christine Ladd-Franklin, saying that she was a solipsist, and was surprised that there were no others. Coming from a logician and a solipsist, her surprise surprised me.”
― Bertrand Russell, Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits

“Perfect rationality consists, not in believing what is true, but in attaching to every proposition a degree of belief corresponding to its degree of credibility.”
― Bertrand Russell, Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits

“That scientific inference requires, for its validity, principles which experience cannot render even probable is, I believe, an inescapable conclusion from the logic of probability....'Knowledge,' in my opinion, is a much less precise concept than is generally thought, and has its roots more deeply embedded in unverbalized animal behavior than most philosophers have been willing to admit....To ask, therefore, whether we 'know' the postulates of scientific inference is not so definite a question as it seems....In the sense in which 'no' is the right answer we know nothing whatever, and 'knowledge' in this sense is a delusive vision. The perplexities of philosophers are due, in large measure, to their unwillingness to awaken from their blissful dream.”
― Bertrand Russell, Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits