Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the difficulty many have in engaging in deep thought and reflection.
Bertrand Russell's quote highlights the tendency of individuals to avoid critical thinking and introspection, suggesting that many would rather go through life unexamined than confront challenging thoughts or ideas. It suggests a fear of the complexity that comes with thinking deeply, implying that, in some way, people metaphorically die to their capacity for thought by choosing ignorance or superficiality over contemplation.
In practice
In a philosophy class while discussing the importance of critical thinking.
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.
My father would be very concerned about the environment. He'd be disappointed that we have hundreds of thousands and maybe even millions of people who are living out on the streets in the wealthiest nation on the planet. He'd be greatly disappointed because he would know that we can, and we must, do better.
Man's grandeur is that he knows himself to be miserable.
It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them.
Whether at work, at home or in public, we have been trained to believe that who we are at the core of our being is often unacceptable. As a result, we work diligently to live up to - and sometimes down to - what others have made us out to be, whether or not it is an accurate reflection of who we are.
You carry your snare everywhere and spread your nets in all places. You allege that you never invited others to sin. You did not indeed, by your words, but you have done so by your dress and your deportment.
A possibility is a hint from God. One must follow it.
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