In all affairs, it’s a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.
~ Bertrand Russell
slip:4a631.
Bertrand Russell
Intelligent dissent
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.
~ Bertrand Russell
slip:4a368.
How to grow old
Make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life. An individual human existence should be like a river — small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past rocks and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being.
~ Bertrand Russell from, https://www.brainpickings.org/2018/07/03/how-to-grow-old-bertrand-russell/
I’m certain I have nothing to add to that. If that doesn’t make you the least bit wistful, then I’ll wager you are young.
ɕ
Fools and fanatics versus the wise
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.
~ Bertrand Russell
slip:4a276.
This seemed to be trite commentary until I realized that one could also read it to be actionable instructions: The key to solving big, real world, problems is figuring out when one is being the fool/fanatic versus the wise.
ɕ