One of the chief obstacles to intelligence is credulity, and credulity could be enormously diminished by instructions as to the prevalent forms of mendacity. Credulity is a greater evil in the present day than it ever was before, because, owing to the growth of education, it is much easier than it used to be to spread misinformation, and, owing to democracy, the spread of misinformation is more important than in former times to the holders of power.
Interpretation
Credulity leads to ignorance, and education can combat misinformation.
In this quote, Bertrand Russell emphasizes the dangers of being overly gullible in a world where misinformation can spread rapidly due to both education and democratic access to information. He argues that while education has the potential to enlighten, it also makes it easier for falsehoods to propagate, thus increasing the risk of credulity leading people to accept lies without critical thinking. Therefore, instilling a strong awareness of the various types of deceitful information is crucial for fostering intelligence in society.
In practice
During a public debate about media literacy, this quote could highlight the need for educational initiatives.
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.
In the long run, your human capital is your main base of competition. Your leading indicator of where you're going to be 20 years from now is how well you're doing in your education system.
The number one problem in today's generation and economy is the lack of financial literacy.
Books transmit values. They explore our common humanity. What is the message when some children are not represented in those books?
A workshop is a way of renting an audience, and making sure you're communicating what you think you're communicating. It's so easy as a young writer to think you're been very clear when in fact you haven't.
To go back and read Swift and Defoe and Samuel Johnson and Smollett and Pope - all those people we had to read in college English courses - to read them now is to have one of the infinite pleasures in life.
My hope was that organizations would start including this range of skills in their training programs - in other words, offer an adult education in social and emotional intelligence.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.