Both in thought and in feeling, even though time be real, to realise the unimportance of time is the gate of wisdom.
Interpretation
Understanding that time is less important than our thoughts and feelings leads to true wisdom.
This quote by Bertrand Russell emphasizes that while time is a tangible aspect of our lives, it is not the primary concern when it comes to gaining wisdom. Instead, what truly matters is our thoughts and emotions, and learning to prioritize them over the mere passage of time allows us to cultivate a deeper understanding of life and ourselves.
In practice
In a graduation speech to emphasize the value of personal growth over just time spent in education.
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.
Every advantage in the past is judged in the light of the final issue.
The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of childhood into maturity.
The heart is like a mirror. When we dust it off, we are able to see ourselves. The dust is all our stuff - guilt, anger - this stuff is reflected back to us. Practice removes the dust from the mirror of our hearts.
You must love your work, and not be always looking over the edge of it, wanting your play to begin. And the other is, you must not be ashamed of your work, and think it would be more honorable to you to be doing something else. You must have a pride in your own work and in learning to do it well.
I believe that reading and writing are the most nourishing forms of meditation anyone has so far found. By reading the writings of the most interesting minds in history, we meditate with our own minds and theirs as well. This to me is a miracle.
Providence is wiser than you, and you may be confident it has suited all things better to your eternal good than you could do had you been left to your own option.
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