Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
Interpretation
Embrace unique opinions; they may lead to important changes in thought.
This quote by Bertrand Russell encourages individuals to embrace their eccentric opinions. It highlights that many of the ideas and beliefs we hold today were once considered strange or unconventional, suggesting that innovation and progress often stem from thinking differently and challenging the status quo. By not fearing eccentricity, individuals can contribute to the evolution of thought and understanding in society.
In practice
In a speech advocating for creativity in the workplace.
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.
Make men wise, and by that very operation you make them free. Civil liberty follows as a consequence of this; no usurped power can stand against the artillery of opinion.
One of the worst features about worrying is that it destroys our ability to concentrate. When we worry, our minds jump here and there and everywhere, and we lose all power of decision. However, when we force ourselves to face the worst and accept it mentally, we then eliminate all those vague imaginings and put ourselves in a position in which we are able to concentrate on our problem.
Confidence contributes more to conversation than wit.
There are people who possess not so much genius as a certain talent for perceiving the desires of the century, or even of the decade, before it has done so itself.
I've gotten this advice at different times, and it distills down to one word: purpose. Why are you here? When you start to get distracted by thoughts such as 'Do I fit in? Does this person like me?' - remember why you're there and what you want to accomplish.
No theory is good unless it permits, not rest, but the greatest work. No theory is good except on condition that one use it to go on beyond.
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