30/08/2024
“There is almost always a way, though sometimes a much slower way, of doing things without violence. For it is not by hostility that good things are achieved.“
— Bertrand Russell, New Hopes for a Changing World (1951)
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Image: Bertrand Russell, 1954.
Russell was a passionate philosopher and mathematician who was outraged by what he considered humankind's irrational beliefs and needless cruelties. Russell wrote and spoke to be understood. His clarity of expression reflects the clarity of his thought. Unlike many philosophers, Russell is well-known for his lucid and elegant prose style. In his philosophical works, there is little abstract jargon nor do we find many flowery expressions. Russell valued getting to the point. At the age of eighty nine Russell was imprisoned for his role in a peace and nuclear disarmament demonstration. He was offered leniency by the magistrate on the condition that he promised to maintain ‘good behaviour’. Russell's laconic response, simple yet forceful, was:
“No, I won’t.”