If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time. Bertrand Russell
About This Quote

The above quote is a great example of how to use the presumption of doubt. If you are saying something that cannot be disproved it reduces all reasonable arguments. If you can't prove your point then why should anyone else bother to argue with you. It's not even worth it.

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More Quotes By Bertrand Russell
  1. Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.
  2. To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already 3-parts dead.
  3. Those who have never known the deep intimacy and the intense companionship of happy mutual love have missed the best thing that life has to give.
  4. Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a great ocean...
  5. Remember your humanity, and forget the rest.
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