“To teach how to live without certainty, and yet without being paralyzed by hesitation, is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age, can still do for those who study it.”

Source: A History of Western Philosophy

Last update Sept. 29, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "To teach how to live without certainty, and yet without being paralyzed by hesitation, is perhaps the chief thing that …" by Bertrand Russell?
Bertrand Russell photo
Bertrand Russell 562
logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and politi… 1872–1970

Related quotes

James K. Morrow photo

“Those who can kill themselves do, and those who can’t, teach philosophy.”

James K. Morrow (1947) (1947-) science fiction author

Source: The Philosopher's Apprentice (2008), Chapter 13 (p. 295)

John Steinbeck photo
Simon Soloveychik photo
Elton John photo

“Live for each second without hesitation”

Elton John (1947) English rock singer-songwriter, composer and pianist
Peter Kropotkin photo

“It is not without a certain hesitation that I have decided to take the philosophy and ideal of Anarchy as the subject of this lecture.”

Peter Kropotkin (1842–1921) Russian zoologist, evolutionary theorist, philosopher, scientist, revolutionary, economist, activist, geogr…

Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Ideal (1896)
Context: It is not without a certain hesitation that I have decided to take the philosophy and ideal of Anarchy as the subject of this lecture.
Those who are persuaded that Anarchy is a collection of visions relating to the future, and an unconscious striving toward the destruction of all present civilization, are still very numerous; and to clear the ground of such prejudices of our education as maintain this view we should have, perhaps, to enter into many details which it would be difficult to embody in a single lecture. Did not the Parisian press, only two or three years ago, maintain that the whole philosophy of Anarchy consisted in destruction, and that its only argument was violence?
Nevertheless Anarchists have been spoken of so much lately, that part of the public has at last taken to reading and discussing our doctrines. Sometimes men have even given themselves trouble to reflect, and at the present moment we have at least gained a point: it is willingly admitted that Anarchists have an ideal. Their ideal is even found too beautiful, too lofty for a society not composed of superior beings.

George Sand photo
Jorge Luis Borges photo

“Happy are the beloved and the lovers and those who can live without love.”

Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and a key figure in Spanish language literature
Richard Feynman photo

“We absolutely must leave room for doubt or there is no progress and no learning. There is no learning without having to pose a question. And a question requires doubt. People search for certainty. But there is no certainty. People are terrified — how can you live and not know?”

It is not odd at all. You only think you know, as a matter of fact. And most of your actions are based on incomplete knowledge and you really don't know what it is all about, or what the purpose of the world is, or know a great deal of other things. It is possible to live and not know.
from lecture "What is and What Should be the Role of Scientific Culture in Modern Society", given at the Galileo Symposium in Italy (1964)
The Pleasure of Finding Things Out (1999)

“This problem - it is age old. To do what is right and save the day without destroying the very thing the day is lived for.”

Christopher Pike (1954) American author Kevin Christopher McFadden

Source: Black Blood

Related topics