It is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing it true
Interpretation
Believing something without evidence is not a rational position.
This quote from Bertrand Russell emphasizes the importance of evidence in forming beliefs. To accept a proposition as true without any supportive grounds is seen as intellectually irresponsible, suggesting that critical thinking and skepticism are essential in the pursuit of knowledge and understanding.
In practice
In a debate about climate change, one might use this quote to emphasize the need for scientific evidence.
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.
We know so little. Our judgment is so limited. We judge the Lord's ways from our own narrow view.
Every man lives in two realms: the internal and the external. The internal is that realm of spiritual ends expressed in art, literature, morals, and religion. The external is that complex of devices, techniques, mechanisms, and instrumentalities by means of which we live.
Where the bishop is present, there is the Catholic Church
Vivisection is a social evil because if it advances human knowledge, it does so at the expense of human character.
The true civilization is where every man gives to every other every right that he claims for himself.
In a strange room you must empty yourself for sleep. And before you are emptied for sleep, what are you. And when you are emptied for sleep, what are you. And when you are emptied for sleep you are not. And when you are filled with sleep, you never were. I don't know what I am. I don't know if I am or not.
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