When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your husband or your children, endeavor to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.
Interpretation
True victory comes from reasoned argument rather than imposing authority.
In this quote, Bertrand Russell emphasizes the importance of engaging in reasoned discussions rather than relying on authority to achieve victory in any disagreement. He suggests that when faced with opposition, whether it comes from loved ones or others, one should use logical argumentation to persuade rather than simply exerting power or control, as victories won through authority are ultimately hollow and lack genuine substance.
In practice
This quote could be used in a family meeting to encourage healthy debate rather than power struggles.
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.
And I watch my words from a long way off. They are more yours than mine. They climb on my old suffering like ivy.
There are men and women so lonely they believe God, too, is lonely.
But what force in the galaxy is stronger than she is?" "Indifference." Jerusha surprised herself with the answer. "Indifference, Gundhalinu, is the strongest force in the universe. It makes everything it touches meaningless. Love and hate don't stand a chance against it. It lets neglect and decay and monstrous injustice go unchecked. It doesn't act, it allows. And that's what gives it so much power.
During Lent, let us find concrete ways to overcome our indifference.
No one would have doubted his ability to reign had he never been emperor.
Our flaws are what makes us human. If we can accept them as part of who we are, they really don't even have to be an issue.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.