Our individual life is brief, and perhaps the whole life of mankind will be brief if measured in astronomical scale
Interpretation
Life is short, and when viewed on a cosmic scale, humanity's existence is insignificant.
This quote by Bertrand Russell highlights the transient nature of human life and existence in the vastness of the universe. It urges us to reflect on our lives, suggesting that while our individual experiences may feel significant, they are merely fleeting moments in the larger context of time and the cosmos. Russell encourages us to consider our mortality and the brevity of mankind's presence in the universe, prompting a deeper contemplation on how we choose to live our lives.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of making the most of our time.
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.
The question of questions for the politicians should ever be-What type of social structure am I tending to produce? But this is a question he never entertains.
A pier is a disappointed bridge; yet stare at it for long enough and you can dream it to the other side of the Channel.
Forbidden pleasures alone are loved immoderately; when lawful, they do not excite desire.
Creation stories had never been regarded as historically accurate; their purpose was therapeutic. But once you start reading Genesis as scientifically valid, you have bad science and bad religion.
There is in each of us an ancient force that takes and an ancient force that gives. A man finds little difficulty facing that place within himself where the taking force dwells, but it's almost impossible for him to see into the giving force without changing into something other than man. For a woman, the situation is reversed. ... These things are so ancient within us that they're ground into each separate cell of our bodies... It's as easy to be overwhelmed by giving as by taking.
Sometimes there is a difference in what is legal and what ought to be done.
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