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.
When Sunday loses its fundamental meaning and becomes subordinate to a secular concept of weekend dominated by such things as entertainment and sport, people stay locked within a horizon so narrow that they can no longer see the heavens.
What's really hurting me, the name Islam is involved, and Muslim is involved and causing trouble and starting hate and violence. ... Islam is not a killer religion. ... Islam means peace, I couldn't just sit home and watch people label Muslims as the reason for this problem.
Pythagoras used to say that life resembles the Olympic Games: a few people strain their muscles to carry off a prize; others bring trinkets to sell to the crowd for gain; and some there are, and not the worst, who seek no other profit than to look at the show and see how and why everything is done; spectators of the life of other people in order to judge and regulate their own.
I know we can't abolish prejudice through laws, but we can set up guidelines for our actions by legislation.
If you seek authenticity for authenticity's sake you are no longer authentic.
'Thou shalt not kill' does not apply to murder of one's own kind only, but to all living beings and this commandment was inscribed in the human breast long before it was proclaimed from Sinai.
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