When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your husband or your children, endeavor to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.
Interpretation
True victory comes from reasoned argument rather than imposing authority.
In this quote, Bertrand Russell emphasizes the importance of engaging in reasoned discussions rather than relying on authority to achieve victory in any disagreement. He suggests that when faced with opposition, whether it comes from loved ones or others, one should use logical argumentation to persuade rather than simply exerting power or control, as victories won through authority are ultimately hollow and lack genuine substance.
In practice
This quote could be used in a family meeting to encourage healthy debate rather than power struggles.
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.
And though all streams flow from a single course to cleanse the blood from polluted hand, they hasten on their course in vain.
I am in the utmost perplexity, yand have wished a hundred times, that if there is a A God, nature would manifest him without ambiguity, and that if there is not, every imaginary sign of his existence might vanish : in short, let nature speak distinctly, or be totally silent, and I shall know what course to take.
We do not draw people to Christ by loudly discrediting what they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light that is so lovely that they want with all their hearts to know the source of it.
I used to get the feeling, and sometimes I still get it, that I was fooling somebody - I don't know who or what - maybe myself. I have feelings some days where there are scenes with a lot of responsibility, and I'll wish, 'Gee, if only I had been a cleaning woman.'
To test a perfect theory with imperfect instruments did not impress the Greek philosophers as a valid way to gain knowledge.
There are thoughts which are prayers. There are moments when, whatever the posture of the body, the soul is on its knees.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.