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.
Interpretation
War has often been driven by the aggression of men and the admiration they receive from women for their strength in battle.
Bertrand Russell's quote suggests that throughout history, the dynamics of war have been influenced by both male aggression and the admiration of women for masculine strength and valor. He highlights how this interplay of confidence and admiration has contributed to the facilitation of war, particularly in contexts where authority or monarchy was absent to control the circumstances.
In practice
In a debate about the motivations behind historical conflicts, this quote can highlight the role of gender dynamics.
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.
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.
Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent than in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.
For those who stubbornly seek freedom, there can be no more urgent task than to come to understand the mechanisms and practices of indoctrination. These are easy to perceive in the totalitarian societies, much less so in the system of 'brainwashing under freedom' to which we are subjected and which all too often we serve as willing or unwitting instruments.
Besides the respect of the lives of human beings, all the animals and plants should be on the list too. That is the real humanitarianism.
Actually, your soul and mine are the same. We appear and disappear with each other.
I understood . . . that those who desired salvation should act like the trustee who, though having control over great possessions, regards not an iota of them as his own.
Why should I fear death?_x000D_ If I am, then death is not._x000D_ If Death is, then I am not._x000D_ Why should I fear that which can only exist when I do not?_x000D_ Long time men lay oppressed with slavish fear._x000D_ Religious tyranny did domineer._x000D_ At length the mighty one of Greece_x000D_ Began to assent the liberty of man.
Religion isn’t about believing things. It's ethical alchemy. It’s about behaving in a way that changes you, that gives you intimations of holiness and sacredness.
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