Speaking psycho-analytically, it may be laid down that any "great ideal" which people mention with awe is really an excuse for inflicting pain on their enemies. Good wine needs no bush, and good morals need no bated breath.
Interpretation
Great ideals often disguise intentions to harm others, while true quality stands on its own without embellishment.
In this quote, Bertrand Russell critiques the way society venerates certain ideals, suggesting that they often serve as a facade for justifying harm towards opponents. He implies that, much like good wine requires no advertising, genuine morals and values should manifest naturally without the need for excessive promotion or justification. This perspective invites reflection on the authenticity of our motivations and beliefs.
In practice
In a debate on ethics, this quote can illustrate how ideals can mask harmful intentions.
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.
Testimony demands to be interpreted because of the dialectic of meaning and event that traverses it.
Through me you pass into the city of woe: Through me you pass into eternal pain: Through me among the people lost for aye. Justice the founder of my fabric moved: To rear me was the task of power divine, Supremest wisdom, and primeval love. Before me things create were none, save things Eternal, and eternal I shall endure. All hope abandon, ye who enter here.
With some notable exceptions, businessmen favor free enterprise in general but are opposed to it when it comes to themselves.
One thing, and only one thing, is necessary for Christian life, righteousness, and freedom. That one thing is the most holy Word of God, the gospel of Christ.
Absolute silence leads to sadness. It is the image of death.
The entire most beautiful order of things that are very good, when their measures have been accomplished, is to pass away.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.