“It is not by delusion, however exalted, that mankind can prosper, but only by unswerving courage in the pursuit of truth.”

—  Bertrand Russell

"The Pursuit of Truth" in The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell (1993)
Attributed from posthumous publications
Context: I cannot believe – and I say this with all the emphasis of which I am capable – that there can ever be any good excuse for refusing to face the evidence in favour of something unwelcome. It is not by delusion, however exalted, that mankind can prosper, but only by unswerving courage in the pursuit of truth.

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Bertrand Russell 562
logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and politi… 1872–1970

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