I am not myself in any degree ashamed of having changed my opinions.
Interpretation
Changing one's opinions is a natural part of personal growth and intellectual honesty.
This quote by Bertrand Russell highlights the importance of being open to changing one's mind and beliefs as a sign of growth and maturity. Instead of viewing changes in opinion as a weakness, it suggests that adapting our views in light of new evidence or insights is a strength and reflects an evolving understanding of the world.
In practice
In a discussion about personal development, someone might quote Russell to emphasize the value of evolving perspectives.
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.
Why should she give her bounty to the dead? What is divinity if it can come Only in silent shadows and in dreams?
One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit.
Fame is damaging when people become reliant on it for their sense of self, and their identity, when fame is linked to how you see yourself.
The flexibility we gain in asana is the living symbol of the suppleness we gain in relation to lifeβs problems and challenges.
The moment the slave resolves that he will no longer be a slave, his fetters fall. Freedom and slavery are mental states.
Neither one should hesitate about dedicating oneself to philosophy when young, nor should get tired of doing it when one's old, because no one is ever too young or too old to reach one's soul's healthy.
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