I am sometimes shocked by the blasphemies of those who think themselves pious.
Interpretation
The quote critiques those who believe they are morally superior while displaying hypocrisy.
Bertrand Russell expresses a sense of astonishment at the profound hypocrisy found in individuals who consider themselves devout or morally righteous. He points out that such individuals often commit acts or hold beliefs that are fundamentally contrary to the very principles they profess to uphold, highlighting a disconnect between their self-image and their actual behavior.
In practice
In a debate about morality in politics, this quote can emphasize the hypocrisy of leaders.
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.
But whether I become a believer or remain an agnostic, my belief or disbelief must derive its source from within, not from without. I, myself, must create its symbols. The transcendental is that which produces its own form. I will never discover its secret if I do not find it in my own heart; if I do not possess it already I shall never be able to acquire it.
Each of us is incomplete compared to someone else - an animal's incomplete compared to a person... and a person compared to God, who is complete only to be imaginary.
I would say as a journalist, I would envision travelling to other countries that have had to reckon with their past and see how they've done it: what worked, what didn't work, finding characters that would tell the story of how that process was done.
I feel I have a lot to learn from English football and I am completely open to good influences in my way of thinking football. But I also have things to give them.
In the nineteenth century the problem was that God is dead. In the twentieth century the problem is that man is dead.
The only person for whom the house was in any way special was Arthur Dent, and that was only because it happened to be the one he lived in.
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