The degree of one's emotions varies inversely with one's knowledge of the facts.
Interpretation
Emotional responses are often less intense when we have a strong understanding of the facts.
Bertrand Russell's quote suggests that our emotional reactions to events or situations diminish in intensity as our understanding of the underlying facts increases. This reflects the idea that knowledge and rational thinking can temper our emotional responses, leading to a more balanced and thoughtful perspective on life.
In practice
This quote could be used in a discussion about emotional intelligence 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.
Listen! Clam up your mouth and be silent like an oyster shell, for that tongue of yours is the enemy of the soul, my friend. When the lips are silent, the heart has a hundred tongues.
Whatever happens, do not lose hold of the two main ropes of life - hope and faith.
What is there in life if you do not work? There is only sensation, and there are only a few sensations— you cannot live on them. You can only live on work, by work, through work. How can you live with self-respect if you do not do things as well as lies in you?
We either allow our past to keep interfering with our optimal expression of love and happiness, or we can move beyond our past with renewed passion for life
The truth is, part of me is every age. I’m a three-year-old, I’m a five-year-old, I’m a thirty-seven-year-old, I’m a fifty-year-old. I’ve been through all of them, and I know what it’s like. I delight in being a child when it’s appropriate to be a child. I delight in being a wise old man when it’s appropriate to be a wise old man. Think of all I can be! I am every age, up to my own.
Let me tell so much truth. I want to tell the truth in my work. The truth will lead me to all.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.