We know very little, and yet it is astonishing that we know so much, and still more astonishing that so little knowledge can give us so much power.
Interpretation
Despite our limited knowledge, it's surprising how much influence it can yield.
This quote by Bertrand Russell highlights the paradox of human understanding. While our grasp of the universe and its complexities is minimal, the amount of knowledge we do possess allows us to wield significant power and influence over our surroundings. It suggests that even a small amount of understanding can lead to substantial impact, reflecting both the potential and limitations of human intellect.
In practice
In a lecture about the importance of education, this quote can illustrate the value of even basic 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.
These words dropped into my childish mind as if you should accidentally drop a ring into a deep well. I did not think of them much at the time, but there came a day in my life when the ring was fished up out of the well, good as new.
Make men wise, and by that very operation you make them free. Civil liberty follows as a consequence of this; no usurped power can stand against the artillery of opinion.
There is no need for me to curse you -the murderer survives the victim only to learn that it was himself that he longed to be rid of. Hatred is self-hatred.
Attend well to your character, and your reputation will look out for itself.
We are told, that the black bear is innocent; but I should not like to trust myself with him.
I was a young man with uninformed ideas. I threw out queries, suggestions, wondering all the time over everything; and to my astonishment the ideas took like wildfire. People made a religion of them.
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