I like mathematics because it is not human and has nothing particular to do with this planet or with the whole accidental universe - because, like Spinoza's God, it won't love us in return.
Interpretation
Mathematics is an abstract discipline that exists independently of human emotions and earthly concerns.
In this quote, Bertrand Russell expresses his fascination with mathematics as a realm that transcends human influence and the chaotic nature of the universe. He suggests that mathematics is impersonal and objective, akin to Spinoza's concept of God, which does not reciprocate human feelings or attachments. This impersonal nature of mathematics offers a unique perspective on the search for truth and meaning in a universe that often appears random and subjective.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of STEM education, one could reference this quote to emphasize the objective beauty of mathematics.
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.
When you look at the light bulb above you, you remember Thomas Alva Edison. When the telephone bell rings, you remember Alexander Graham Bell. Marie Curie was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize. When you see the blue sky, you think of Sir C.V. Raman.
Any difficulties which the world faces today will be as nothing compared to the full effects which global warming will have on the world-wide economy.
This field is not necessarily glamorous, nor does it often produce immediate results, but it seeks to increase our basic understanding of living processes.
We live in the hope and faith that, by the advance of molecular physics, we shall by-and-by be able to see our way as clearly from the constituents of water to the properties of water, as we are now able to deduce the operations of a watch from the form of its parts and the manner in which they are put together.
I can never satisfy myself until I can make a mechanical model of a thing. If I can make a mechanical model, I can understand it. As long as I cannot make a mechanical model all the way through I cannot understand.
In real time, the universe has a beginning and an end at singularities that form a boundary to space-time and at which the laws of science break down.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.