Ethics is in origin the art of recommending to others the sacrifices required for cooperation with oneself.
Interpretation
Ethics involves guiding others towards making sacrifices for mutual cooperation.
Bertrand Russell's quote highlights the foundational role of ethics in fostering cooperation among individuals. He suggests that ethics is not merely about personal morality but also about persuading others to engage in self-sacrifice in order to achieve common goals, implying that mutual cooperation often requires individuals to set aside their own interests for the greater good.
In practice
During a discussion on community service, one might quote this to emphasize the importance of self-sacrifice for the common good.
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.
ATHENA: There are two sides to this dispute. I've heard only one half the argument. (...) So you two parties, summon your witnesses, set out your proofs, with sworn evidence to back your stories. Once I've picked the finest men in Athens, I'll return. They'll rule fairly in this case, bound by a sworn oath to act with justice.
I am not African because I was born in Africa but because Africa was born in me.
What we see in the outer is but a reflection of the inner, because we surround ourselves with a picture of our own beliefs. In other words, we manifest in general what we seriously think and believe. So if we want to find out what our habitual thinking is like, we have but to look around us and ask ourselves what we really see.
We are here to bring to consciousness the beauty and power that are around us and to praise the people who are here with us.
We Americans know - although others appear to forget - the risk of spreading conflict. We still seek no wider war.
Many of her thoughts were perfect syllogisms; unluckily they always remained thoughts. Only a few were irrational assumptions; but, unfortunately, they were the ones which most frequently grew into deeds
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