In 1933 Bertrand Russell wrote an essay titled “The Triumph of Stupidity” that lamented the rise of the Nazi movement in Germany. Russell employed a version of the saying: 2
“The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt. Even those of the intelligent who believe that they have a nostrum are too individualistic to combine with other intelligent men from whom they differ on minor points.”
In 1935 Russell’s statement was disseminated via the Canadian newspaper “The Lethbridge Herald” of Lethbridge, Alberta. The phrasing was slightly altered by the movement of the phrase “is that”. The quotation was credited to Russell and was used as a filler item: 3
“The fundamental cause of the trouble in the modern world today is that the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.”—Bertrand Russell.
In September 1936 the syndicated column “The Office Cat” printed a simplified shortened version of Russell’s expression, but no credit was given to Russell or anyone else: 4
“A LOT OF TROUBLE TODAY IS THAT THE STUPID ARE COCKSURE AND THE INTELLIGENT ARE FULL OF DOUBTS.”
In October 1936 a column called “Scoop’s Colyum” in a Danville, Virginia newspaper reprinted the expression given in “The Office Cat” without an acknowledgement to Russell or “The Office Cat”. 5
In 1949 the quotation collector Evan Esar included the saying in “The Dictionary of Humorous Quotations”. The altered streamlined expression was ascribed to Russell: 6
RUSSELL, Bertrand, born 1872, English philosopher, mathematician, and writer.
“The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent full of doubt.”
The Best Lack All Conviction While the Worst Are Full of Passionate Intensity
