I once saw a photograph of a large herd of wild elephants in Central Africa Seeing an airplane for the first time, and all in a state of wild collective terror... As, however, there were no journalists among them, the terror died down when the airplane was out of sight.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the fleeting nature of fear and how it can dissipate when the source of it is no longer present.
In this quote, Bertrand Russell observes a herd of wild elephants experiencing intense fear upon seeing an airplane for the first time. The initial terror they felt illustrates a natural response to unfamiliar threats, which can be overwhelming and chaotic. However, the observation that the fear subsided once the airplane disappeared suggests that many fears are transient and can diminish quickly in the absence of their triggers. This underscores a philosophical reflection on how our perceptions of danger can be situational and fleeting.
In practice
During a discussion about overcoming phobias, this quote can illustrate how fears often diminish when we face their sources.
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.
A true worshipper is one whose mind has not been defiled with any false belief.
The universe is alive and conscious, and it responds to our intent when we have our intimate relationship with the universe and see it not as separate but as our extended body.
All official institutions of language are repeating machines: school, sports, advertising, popular songs, news, all continually repeat the same structure, the same meaning, often the same words: the stereotype is a political fact, the major figure of ideology.
The problem of our age is the proper administration of wealth, so that the ties of brotherhood may still bind together the rich and poor in harmonious relationship.
No matter where you find yourself, comport yourself as if you were a distinguished person.
We do not say: Being is, time is, but rather: there is Being and there is time.
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