In the part of this universe that we know there is great injustice, and often the good suffer, and often the wicked prosper, and one hardly knows which of those is the more annoying.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the inherent injustice in the universe, where good people often face suffering while wrongdoers may thrive.
Bertrand Russell's quote delves into the often frustrating nature of moral injustice in the world. It highlights the paradox that, despite our understanding of right and wrong, we frequently observe that virtuous individuals experience hardship while those who engage in wickedness seem to prosper. This observation raises profound questions about the nature of justice and the human condition, leaving us in a state of bewilderment about the workings of fate and morality.
In practice
Quoting this during a discussion on social justice issues to emphasize the persistent inequalities in society.
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 problem with certainty is that it is static; it can do little but endlessly reassert itself. Uncertainty, by contrast, is full of unknowns, possibilities, and risks.
A: There is no grand scheme of things. B: If there were a grand scheme of things, the fact β the fact β that we are not equipped to perceive it, either by natural or supernatural means, is a nightmarish obscenity. C: The very notion of a grand scheme of things is a nightmarish obscenity.
Power gradually extirpates from the mind every humane and gentle virtue.
A man far oftener appears to have a decided character from persistently following his temperament than from persistently following his principles.
You never step in the same river of thought twice, because neither you nor it are the same.
Men always talk about the most important things to perfect strangers. In the perfect stranger we perceive man himself; the image of a God is not disguised by resemblances to an uncle or doubts of wisdom of a mustache.
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