The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that there are many wonders in the world that can be discovered and appreciated if we improve our awareness and understanding.
Bertrand Russell's quote reflects the idea that the world is rich with beauty and extraordinary experiences, but these can only be fully recognized when we cultivate our intelligence and perceptiveness. It encourages the pursuit of knowledge and awareness as a means to unlock the magic around us, suggesting that a sharpened mind is essential to appreciating the marvels of life.
In practice
In a motivational speech about personal growth, one could use this quote to emphasize the importance of sharpening one's mind.
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.
You must purge yourself before finding faults in others.
Most of the stress people experience comes from inappropriately managed commitments they make or accept.
You have a conscience, and a conscience is a valuable attribute, but not if it begins to make you think you were to blame for what is far beyond the scope of your responsibility.
Those who think that it is easy to play chess are mistaken. During a game a player lives on his nerves, and at the same time he must be perfectly composed.
Somebody who only reads newspapers and at best books of contemporary authors looks to me like an extremely near-sighted person who scorns eyeglasses. He is completely dependent on the prejudices and fashions of his times, since he never gets to see or hear anything else.
Vices are their own punishment
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