Quotation
Last reviewed:
“The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.”
Bertrand Russell · Analytic philosophy · Modern · 1933
What does it mean?
The trouble, he writes in 1933, is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt. He is describing a public danger, a mismatch between confidence and understanding, in a decade of dogmatic mass politics. A rival reading notes that doubt can be an affectation, that intelligence can be cocksure, and that 'stupid' is a sneer that lets the writer off the hook. The sentence is a social observation, not a proof that hesitation is always the wiser state.
Did Bertrand Russell really say this?
The library’s label is Well attested. Russell wrote this in a 1933 essay. A smoother proverb — 'fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts' — is a later paraphrase of it. Prefer this wording or mark the other as a paraphrase.
Where it comes from
The Triumph of Stupidity (1933), in Mortals and Others
Approximate date: 1933.
How to use it
In a meeting, or in a feed, notice who sounds sure and who is still asking. Do not award the argument to the tone. That award is the trouble he names. Do not, either, award it automatically to the person who looks pained and clever. He did not prove that move.
A mindset reading
Doubt is not a personality. The essay is cultural criticism from a logician who was frightened of certainty in the wrong mouths. It is not symbolic logic, and it is not a complete epistemology of confidence.
Understand the philosophy
The line belongs with his fear of dogmatic politics in the 1930s. Reading it as a timeless ranking of temperaments loses the occasion. The occasion is part of the meaning.
- knowledge
- society
- mind
FAQ
What does it mean?
The trouble, he writes in 1933, is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt. He is describing a public danger, a mismatch between confidence and understanding, in a decade of dogmatic mass politics. A rival reading notes that doubt can be an affectation, that intelligence can be cocksure, and that 'stupid' is a sneer that lets the writer off the hook. The sentence is a social observation, not a proof that hesitation is always the wiser state.
Did Bertrand Russell really say this?
Well attested. Russell wrote this in a 1933 essay. A smoother proverb — 'fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts' — is a later paraphrase of it. Prefer this wording or mark the other as a paraphrase.
Which work is it in?
The Triumph of Stupidity (1933), in Mortals and Others Approximate date: 1933.