WIST Quotations

A quotation from Bertrand Russell

It is a dangerous error to confound truth with matter-of-fact. Our life is governed not only by facts, but by hopes; the kind of truthfulness which sees nothing but facts is a prison for the human spirit. Dreams are only to be condemned when they are a lazy substitute for an effort to change reality; when they are an incentive, they are fulfilling a vital purpose in the incarnation of human ideals. To kill fancy in childhood is to make a slave to what exists, a creature tethered to earth and therefore unable to create heaven.

Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Education and the Good Life, Part 2, ch. 5 “Play and Fancy” (1926)

More about this quote: wist.info/russell-bertrand/832…

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Russell, Bertrand - Education and the Good Life, Part 2, ch. 5 "Play and Fancy" (1926) | WIST Quotations

It is a dangerous error to confound truth with matter-of-fact. Our life is governed not only by facts, but by hopes; the kind of truthfulness which sees nothing but facts is a prison for the human spirit. Dreams are only to be condemned when they are a lazy substitute for…

WIST Quotations
Apr 8 at 4:29pmWeb
Show thread🇪🇷Götterdämmerung17h ago

@wistquotes yes, hopes govern us. So do delusions, appetites, & the quiet terror of being left alone w/ our own unadorned minds. Hope is less a compass than a narcotic: it does not guide so much as anesthetize. One dreams not cuz reality is insufficient but cuz it is intolerable in its clarity.

Russell speaks of dreams as noble engines, provided they do not idle into laziness. But dreams are rarely so industrious. They prefer velvet couches to factory floors.

Show thread🇪🇷Götterdämmerung17h ago
@wistquotes For every dream that builds a bridge, a thousand more recline languidly, composing excuses in the language of possibility. Humanity does not so much "incarnate ideals" as rehearse them indefinitely. Like actors who never quite step on stage.