It is for this reason that rationality is of supreme importance to the well-being of the human species...even more, in those less fortunate times in which it is despised and rejected as the vain dream of men who lack the virility to kill where they cannot agree.
Interpretation
Rationality is crucial for humanity's survival, especially in times when it's undervalued.
Bertrand Russell emphasizes the essential role of rational thinking in ensuring the well-being of humanity. In his view, rationality is especially important during challenging times, when it may be dismissed by those who prefer violence over reasoned debate, indicating that the failure to embrace rationality can lead to widespread suffering and conflict.
In practice
In a debate about climate change policies, one might cite this quote to encourage rational discourse over emotional arguments.
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.
At any given moment, public opinion is a chaos of superstition, misinformation, and prejudice.
That however the brains and abilities of men may differ, their stomachs are essentially the same.
The pyramids, attached with age, have forgotten the names of their founders.
We ourselves were well conversant with war, murder and everything evil, but all of us throughout the whole wide earth have traded in our weapons of war. We have exchanged our swords for plowshares, our spears for farm tools...now we cultivate the fear of God, justice, kindness, faith, and the expectation of the future given us through the Crucified One....The more we are persecuted and martyred, the more do others in ever increasing numbers become believers.
Everyone thinks I'm showing off when I talk, ridiculous when I'm silent, insolent when I answer, cunning when I have a good idea, lazy when I'm tired, selfish when I eat one bite more than I should.
I am burdened with what the Buddhists call the 'monkey mind' -- the thoughts that swing from limb to limb, stopping only to scratch themselves, spit and howl.
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