Our individual life is brief, and perhaps the whole life of mankind will be brief if measured in astronomical scale
Interpretation
Life is short, and when viewed on a cosmic scale, humanity's existence is insignificant.
This quote by Bertrand Russell highlights the transient nature of human life and existence in the vastness of the universe. It urges us to reflect on our lives, suggesting that while our individual experiences may feel significant, they are merely fleeting moments in the larger context of time and the cosmos. Russell encourages us to consider our mortality and the brevity of mankind's presence in the universe, prompting a deeper contemplation on how we choose to live our lives.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of making the most of our time.
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.
I don't believe there is such a thing as 'moderate Islam.' I think it's better to talk about degrees of belief and degrees of practice.
One side-effect of the so-called war on terror has been a crisis of liberalism. This is not only a question of alarmingly illiberal legislation, but a more general problem of how the liberal state deals with its anti-liberal enemies.
As far as your personal requirements are concerned, the ideal is to _x000D_ have fewer involvements, fewer obligations, and fewer affairs, _x000D_ business or whatever. However, so far as the interest of the larger _x000D_ community is concerned, you must have as many involvements as _x000D_ possible and as many activities as possible.
If you tell yourself a sad story, the body reacts to that. And if you tell yourself a self-aggrandizing story, the body feels puffed up, confident. But when you realize itβs all stories, there can be a vast waking up out of the mind, out of the dream. You donβt awaken, what has eternally been awake realizes itself. That which is eternally awake is what you are.
...chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans are thinking, self-aware beings, capable of planning ahead, who form lasting social bonds with others and have a rich social and emotional life. The great apes are therefore an ideal case for showing the arbitrariness of the species boundary. If we think that all human beings, irrespective of age or mental capacity, have some basic rights, how can we deny that the great apes, who surpass some humans in their capacities, also have these rights?
A cosmic philosophy is not constructed to fit a man; a cosmic philosophy is constructed to fit a cosmos. A man can no more possess a private religion than he can possess a private sun and moon.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.