There are three ways of securing a society that shall be stable as regards population. The first is that of birth control, the second that of infanticide or really destructive wars, and the third that of general misery except for a powerful minority.
Interpretation
The quote discusses three drastic methods to control population stability, hinting at their moral implications.
Bertrand Russell highlights the severe consequences and ethical dilemmas involved in managing population stability. He identifies birth control as a more humane approach, while infanticide and destructive wars, along with a state of general misery for the majority, serve as grim alternatives that indicate societal failure and moral decline. This quote provokes thought on the importance of humane and ethical solutions to social issues.
In practice
During a seminar on ethics in population control, this quote can be referenced to facilitate discussion.
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.
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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.
The words seemed to bite physically into Gatsby.
If we are to judge of love by its consequences, it more nearly resembles hatred than friendship.
Disciples will not be weakened by suffering, worn down, and embittered until they are broken. Instead, they bear suffering, by the power of him who supports them. The disciples bear the suffering laid on them only by the power of him who bears all suffering on the cross. As bearers of suffering, they stand in communion with the Crucified.
If ever I said in grief or pride, I'd tired of honest things, I lied.
A Christian is one who points at Christ and says, 'I can't prove a thing, but there's something about his eyes and his voice. There's something about the way he carries his head, his hands, the way he carries his cross-the way he carries me.'
Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live in dreams?
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