"The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt."
When a confident voice and a cautious doubt collide in a meeting, which one do you find yourself trusting more?
Why Do Smart People Hesitate More?
Bertrand Russell was a British philosopher who sought to rebuild philosophy on mathematics and logic, and a social critic who opposed war and fanaticism all his life. Watching fascism seize the masses with confident slogans in 1930s Europe, he worried that the intellect capable of doubt was losing its voice.
During World War I, Russell was jailed for six months in Brixton Prison in 1918 for an anti-war article. He wrote Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy in his cell—a philosopher who praised doubt, yet was willing to go to prison for his convictions.