Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cozy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigor, and the great spaces have a splendor of their own.
Interpretation
Science may initially feel uncomfortable compared to traditional beliefs, but ultimately it invigorates and reveals a profound beauty in understanding.
In this quote, Bertrand Russell reflects on the discomfort that often accompanies the introduction of scientific reasoning in place of cherished myths and traditions. He suggests that while the 'cold air' of scientific inquiry can momentarily unsettle us, it ultimately leads to a more vigorous, expansive understanding of the world, bringing with it a new kind of beauty and splendor that enriches human experience.
In practice
In a lecture on the importance of scientific literacy, one might quote this to emphasize the value of embracing new knowledge.
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.
We are born of light. The seasons are felt through light. We only know the world as it is evoked by light.
You may have killed God beneath the weight of all that you have said; but don't imagine that, with all that you are saying, you will make a man that will live longer than he.
Of all the enemies of public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.
Nothing is miserable unless you think it so; and on the other hand, nothing brings happiness unless you are content with it.
And then, one Thursday, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, a girl sitting on her own in a small café in Rickmansworth suddenly realized what it was that had been going wrong all this time, and she finally knew how the world could be made a good and happy place. This time it was right, it would work, and no one would have to get nailed to anything.
He who builds on the people, builds on the mud
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.