Bad philosophers may have a certain influence; good philosophers, never.
Interpretation
The impact of philosophy depends greatly on its quality, as bad ideas can spread but good ones often go unacknowledged.
In this quote, Bertrand Russell suggests that while bad philosophers can sway opinions and ideas, the influence of good philosophers is often overlooked or understated. This highlights the unfortunate reality that important, thoughtful contributions to philosophy may not receive the recognition they deserve, whereas flawed ideas can gain traction more easily. The quote serves as a reminder of the importance of discernment in philosophical thought and the often unappreciated value of insightful philosophy.
In practice
This quote can be used in a philosophical discussion about the impact of ideas on society.
St. Paul introduced an entirely novel view of marriage, that it existed primarily to prevent the sin of fornication. It is just as if one were to maintain that the sole reason for baking bread is to prevent people from stealing cake.
Freedom comes only to those who no longer ask of life that it shall yield them any of those personal goods that are subject to the mutations of time.
Of these austerer virtues the love of truth is the chief, and in mathematics, more than elsewhere, the love of truth may find encouragement for waning faith. Every great study is not only an end in itself, but also a means of creating and sustaining a lofty habit of mind; and this purpose should be kept always in view throughout the teaching and learning of mathematics.
At all times, except when a monarch could enforce his will, war has been facilitated by the fact that vigorous males, confident of victory, enjoyed it, while their females admired them for their prowess.
Moreover, the attitude that one ought to believe such and such a proposition, independently of the question whether there is evidence in its favor, is an attitude which produces hostility to evidence and causes us to close our minds to every fact that does not suit our prejudices.
Extreme hopes are born from extreme misery.
Iβve worked in an economy that rewards someone who saves the lives of others on a battlefield with a medal, rewards a great teacher with thank-you notes from parents, but rewards those who can detect the mispricing of securities with sums reaching into the billions.
Everything that everyone is afraid of has already happened: The fragility of capitalism, which we don't want to admit; the loss of the empire of the United States; and American exceptionalism. In fact, American exceptionalism is that we are exceptionally backward in about fifteen different categories, from education to infrastructure.
There is something about poverty that smells like death.
Our whole social environment seems to us to be filled with forces which really exist only in our own minds.
A Religion of Evolution: that, when all is said and done, is what Man needs ever more explicitly if he is to survive and 'superlive,' as soon as he becomes conscious of his power to ultra-hominize himself and of his duty to do so.
Having raised humanity above the beastly level of survival struggles, we will now aim to upgrade humans into gods and turn Homo sapiens into Homo deus.
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