It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly.
Interpretation
Our fixation on material possessions hinders us from achieving true freedom and dignity.
In this quote, Bertrand Russell reflects on the idea that an excessive focus on material wealth and possessions can become an obstacle to experiencing genuine freedom and living a noble life. It suggests that true liberation and nobility arise not from the accumulation of things but from a mindset that values experiences, relationships, and personal growth over material gain.
In practice
During a discussion on minimalism at a community event.
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.
The mirror is not you. The mirror is you looking at yourself.
Lord of Lords, grant us the good whether we pray for it or not, but evil keep from us, even though we pray for it.
Mankind has been and is divided into three parts: the Haves, the Have-Nots, and the Have-a-Little, Want Mores.
Actually, I have no regard for money. Aside from its purchasing power, it's completely useless as far as I'm concerned.
It is hard to prevent oneself from believing what one so keenly desires.
Even such is time, that takes in trust_x000D_ _x000D_ Our youth, our joys, our all we have,_x000D_ _x000D_ And pays us but with age and dust.
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