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…
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #bertrandrussell #fairytales #childrensliterature #change #dreams #fact #hope #ideals #mundanity #progress #truth
LastMilleniumFalcon reshared this.
🇪🇷Götterdämmerung
in reply to WIST Quotations • • •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.
🇪🇷Götterdämmerung
in reply to 🇪🇷Götterdämmerung • • •