It is not my prayer and humility that you cause things to go as you wish, but by acquiring a knowledge of natural laws.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of understanding natural laws over mere prayer or humility when seeking to influence outcomes.
Bertrand Russell suggests that simply relying on prayer and humility is not sufficient for achieving one's desires or influencing events. Instead, he advocates for the acquisition of knowledge, particularly of the natural laws governing the world, as the true means to bring about desired changes. This highlights a philosophical approach towards understanding and shaping reality through informed action rather than purely spiritual or emotional appeals.
In practice
In a motivational speech about personal growth and the role of education.
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 not unprofessional to give free legal advice, but advertising that the first visit will be free is a bit like a fox telling chickens he will not bite them until they cross the threshold of the hen house.
When you are unhappy, you are just coming in touch with your own boundaries. Turn the whole situation into a prayer & you will walk through it.
I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back.
Some problems are so complex that you have to be highly intelligent and well informed just to be undecided about them.
The proximity of a desirable thing tempts one to overindulgence. On that path lies danger.
Your prayers are your light; _x000D_ _x000D_ Your devotion is your strength;_x000D_ _x000D_ Sleep is the enemy of both. _x000D_ _x000D_ Your life is the only opportunity that life can give you._x000D_ _x000D_ If you ignore it, if you waste it,_x000D_ _x000D_ You will only turn to dust.
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