Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent than in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.
Interpretation
Value active, intelligent discussions over passive agreement.
This quote by Bertrand Russell emphasizes the importance of engaging in thoughtful disagreement rather than simply conforming to consensus. By choosing to participate in intelligent dissent, individuals can reach a more profound understanding of ideas, leading to growth and a more robust consensus that values intelligence over mere compliance.
In practice
During a panel discussion on ethics, I referenced this quote to encourage more critical thinking.
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 can easily become as much slaves to precaution as we can to fear. Although we can never rivet our fortune so tight as to make it impregnable, we may by our excessive prudence squeeze out of the life that we are guarding so anxiously all the adventurous quality that makes it worth living.
I don't guess. I think. I ponder. I deduce. Then I decide. But I never guess.
If you were going to be successful in the world of crime, you needed a reputation for honesty.
Talk, talk, talk: the utter and heartbreaking stupidity of words.
Seek advice, but make sure it's from someone who has successfully handled mistakes or adversities.
There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power.
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