The essence of the liberal outlook lies not in what opinions are held, but in how they are held; instead of being held dogmatically, they are held tentatively, and with a consciousness that new evidence may at any moment lead to their abandonment.
Interpretation
Liberal thinking is characterized by openness to change based on new evidence rather than rigidly holding onto beliefs.
This quote by Bertrand Russell emphasizes the importance of maintaining a flexible and open-minded approach to beliefs and opinions. Instead of adhering to ideas in a dogmatic way, one should hold them tentatively, ready to adapt and change in response to new information or evidence, highlighting the essence of intellectual humility and growth.
In practice
During a discussion on political views, one might quote this to advocate for an open-minded approach.
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.
It is insane that two men, sitting on opposite sides of the world, should be able to decide to bring an end to civilization.
Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming downstairs, but sometimes he feels that there really is another way, if only he could stop bumping for a moment and think of it. And then he feels that perhaps there isn't.
Though all afflictions are evils in themselves, yet they are good for us, because they discover to us our disease and tend to our cure.
Celebrity is never more admired than by the negligent.
It's foul what this money could do, cash corrupts the loyal.
We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships. We leap at the flow of time and resist in terror its ebb. We are afraid it will never return. We insist on permanency, on duration, on continuity; when the only continuity possible in life, as in love, is in growth, in fluidity - in freedom.
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