Those who forget good and evil and seek only to know the facts are more likely to achieve good than those who view the world through the distorting medium of their own desires.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that objective understanding often leads to better outcomes than being guided by personal desires.
Bertrand Russell expresses a profound insight into human nature and morality, indicating that a clear, objective understanding of reality—free from the biases of desire—can lead to better ethical outcomes. He argues that those who are capable of seeing the world as it truly is, rather than through their subjective lens, have a greater chance of achieving righteousness and fulfilling moral good, in contrast to those who are driven by selfish impulses.
In practice
During a discussion on ethics in a philosophy class, this quote could be used to emphasize the importance of objective reasoning.
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.
As individuals, people are inherently good. I have a somewhat more pessimistic view of people in groups. And I remain extremely concerned when I see what's happening in our country, which is in many ways the luckiest place in the world. We don't seem to be excited about making our country a better place for our kids.
In the meantime, I would drink, rest, and ponder the meaning of this mob.
There seem to me a great many blessings which come from true poverty and I should be sorry to be deprived of them.
A society is in decay, final or transitional, when common sense really becomes uncommon.
Very little of the great cruelty shown by men can really be attributed to cruel instinct. Most of it comes from thoughtlessness or inherited habit. Extract from 'Memories of childhood and youth.'
…. Query: How contrive not to waste one's time? Answer: By being fully aware of it all the while. Ways in which this can be done: By spending one's days on an uneasy chair in a dentist's waiting-room; by remaining on one's balcony all of a Sunday afternoon; by listening to lectures in a language on doesn't know; by traveling by the longest and least-convenient train routes, and of course standing all the way; by lining up at the box-office of theaters and then not buying a seat; and so forth.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.