I have found, for example, that if I have to write upon sum rather difficult topic, the best plan is to think about it with very great intensity-the greatest intensity of which I am capable-for a few hours or days, and at the end of that time give orders, so to speak (to my subconscious mind) that the work is to proceed underground. After some months I return consciously to the topic and find that the work has been done.
Interpretation
Intense contemplation followed by subconscious processing can lead to insightful results.
In this quote, Bertrand Russell describes a method for tackling difficult topics, emphasizing the importance of dedicating intense focus to the subject matter initially, and then allowing the subconscious to work on it over time. This approach suggests that the mind can continue to process information even when one is not actively thinking about it, leading to deeper understanding and clarity when returning to the topic later.
In practice
This quote can be used in a workshop about creative writing techniques to encourage participants to embrace longer processing times.
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.
My thinking is first and last and always for the sake of my doing, and I can only do one thing at a time.
I threw my cup away when I saw a child drinking from his hands at the trough.
The pessimist borrows trouble; the optimists lend encouragement.
To give advice to a man who asks what to do with his life implies something very close to egomania. To presume to point a man to the right and ultimate goal - to point with a trembling finger in the RIGHT direction is something only a fool would take upon himself.
One should not wish to enjoy where one does not give joy.
What one does easily, one does well.
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