I hold all knowledge that is concerned with things that actually exist - all that is commonly called Science - to be of very slight value compared to the knowledge which, like philosophy and mathematics, is concerned with ideal and eternal objects, and is freed from this miserable world which God has made.
Interpretation
Russell emphasizes the importance of knowledge that transcends the material world over empirical science.
In this quote, Bertrand Russell suggests that while science focuses on the tangible aspects of existence, it holds little intrinsic value compared to the knowledge derived from philosophy and mathematics. He argues that these fields explore ideal concepts and eternal truths, which provide a deeper understanding of reality, unencumbered by the imperfections of the material world created by God.
In practice
In a lecture about the value of different fields of study.
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.
It is one of the beautiful compensations in this life that no one can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.
For there is no one so great or mighty that he can avoid the misery that will rise up against him when he resists and strives against God.
Danger knows full well that Caesar is more dangerous than he. We are two lions litter’d in one day, and I the elder and more terrible.
Yes, all fundamentalists feel that in a secular society, God has been relegated to the margin, to the periphery and they are all in different ways seeking to drag him out of that peripheral position, back to center stage.
It is the indispensable duty of those, who maintain for themselves the rights of human nature, and who possess the obligations of Christianity, to extend their power and influence to the relief of every part of the human race from whatever burden or oppression they may unjustly labor under.
Let us fight the battle-retreat from the things that attract us and rouse ourselves to meet the things that actually attack us.
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