WIST Quotations

Russell, Bertrand -- Education and the Good Life, Part 1, ch. 2 “The Aims of Education” (1926)

Dave — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 16:05:58 +0000

Almost everybody is deeply affected when some one he loves suffers from cancer. Most people are moved when they see the sufferings of unknown patients in hospitals. Yet when they read that the death-rate from cancer is such-and-such, they are as a rule only moved to momentary personal fear lest they or some one dear to them should acquire the disease. The same is true of war: people think it dreadful when their son or brother is mutilated, but they do not think it a million times as dreadful that a million people should be mutilated. A man who is full of kindliness in all personal dealings may derive his income from incitement to war or from the torture of children in “backward” countries.
All these familiar phenomena are due to the fact that sympathy is not stirred, in most people, by a merely abstract stimulus. A large proportion of the evils in the modern world would cease if this could be remedied.

Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Education and the Good Life, Part 1, ch. 2 “The Aims of Education” (1926)
(Source)

Russell, Bertrand -- Education and the Good Life, Part 1, ch. 2 “The Aims of Education” (1926)

Dave — Wed, 18 Mar 2026 16:03:14 +0000

The next stage in the development of a desirable form of sensitiveness is sympathy. There is a purely physical sympathy: a very young child will cry because a brother or sister is crying. This, I suppose, affords the basis for the further developments.
The two enlargements that are needed are: first, to feel sympathy even when the sufferer is not an object of special affection; secondly, to feel it when the suffering is merely known to be occurring, not sensibly present. The second of these enlargements depends mainly upon intelligence. It may only go so far as sympathy with suffering which is portrayed vividly and touchingly, as in a good novel; it may, on the other hand, go so far as to enable a man to be moved emotionally by statistics. This capacity for abstract sympathy is as rare as it is important.

Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Education and the Good Life, Part 1, ch. 2 “The Aims of Education” (1926)
(Source)

This (in the penultimate sentence) appears to be the origin of phrases such as:

"The of a truly intelligent person to be moved by statistics."
"he mark of a civilized man is the ability to look at a column of numbers, and weep."

Sometimes attributed to George Bernard Shaw or Oscar Wilde.

For more discussion, see: Quote Origin: It Is the Mark of a Truly Intelligent Person To Be Moved By Statistics – Quote Investigator®.

La Rochefoucauld, Francois -- Réflexions ou sentences et maximes morales [Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims], ¶265 (1665-1678) [tr. Heard (1917), ¶273]

Dave — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 15:57:23 +0000

We are stubborn because we are narrow-minded; it is hard to believe what is beyond the scope of our vision.

[La petitesse de l’esprit fait l’opiniâtreté, et nous ne croyons pas aisément ce qui est au delà de ce que nous voyons.]

François VI, duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680) French epigrammatist, memoirist, noble
Réflexions ou sentences et maximes morales [Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims], ¶265 (1665-1678) [tr. Heard (1917), ¶273]
(Source)

This maxim was in the 1st (1665) edition (with the wording "... fait souvent l’opiniâtreté ...")

(Source (French)). Other translations:

It is from a Weakness and Littleness of Soul, that Men are Stiff and Positive in their Opinions; and we are very loth to Believe, what we are not able to Comprehend, and make out to Our Selves.
[tr. Stanhope (1694), ¶266]

Narrowness of mind is often the cause of obstinacy: we do not easily believe beyond what we see.
[pub. Donaldson (1783), ¶319; ed. Lepoittevin-Lacroix (1797), ¶248]

Narrowness of mind is often the cause of obstinacy; we believe no farther than we can see.
[ed. Carvill (1835), ¶458]

Narrowness of mind is the cause of obstinacy -- we do not easily believe what is beyond our sight.
[ed. Gowens (1851), ¶276]

A narrow mind begets obstinacy, and we do not easily believe what we cannot see.
[tr. Bund/Friswell (1871), ¶265]

Obstinacy of opinion is due to want of intelligence; we find it difficult to believe what is beyond our mental horizon.
[tr. Stevens (1939), ¶265]

A small mind is a stubborn mind; it is hard to believe what lies beyond our field of vision.
[tr. FitzGibbon (1957), ¶265]

A small mind becomes an obstinate mind: we find it hard to believe what lies beyond our understanding.
[tr. Kronenberger (1959), ¶265]

Obstinacy comes from limited intelligence, and we do not readily believe what is beyond our field of vision.
[tr. Tancock (1959), ¶265]

Narrowness of mind begets obstinacy; and we do not easily believe what we cannot see ourselves.
[tr. Whichello (2016) ¶]

Berry, Wendell -- Speech (2005-05-14), Commencement, Lindsey Wilson College, Columbia, Kentucky

Dave — Mon, 15 Dec 2025 21:01:31 +0000

We are living, it seems, into the culmination of a long warfare — at first merely commercial and then industrial, always unabashedly violent — against human beings and other creatures, and of course against the earth itself. The purpose of this warfare has been to render the real goods of the world into various forms of abstract wealth: money, gold, shares, etc.

Wendell Berry (b. 1934) American farmer, educator, poet, conservationist
Speech (2005-05-14), Commencement, Lindsey Wilson College, Columbia, Kentucky
(Source)

This was either excerpted from, or included in, his undated essay "Letter to Daniel Kemmis," collected in The Way of Ignorance and Other Essays, Part 2 (2005).

Millay, Edna St. Vincent -- Play (1920), Aria da Capo

Dave — Sat, 25 Oct 2025 16:49:08 +0000

PIERROT:I love
Humanity; but I hate people.

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950) American poet
Play (1920), Aria da Capo
(Source)

Millay's comment on the socialist movement.

Jefferson, Thomas -- Letter (1816-11-11) to Matthew Carey

Dave — Thu, 22 Aug 2013 14:40:25 +0000

On the dogmas of religion as distinguished from moral principles, all mankind, from the beginning of the world to this day, have been quarrelling, fighting, burning and torturing one another, for abstractions unintelligible to themselves and to all others, and absolutely beyond the comprehension of the human mind. Were I to enter on that arena, I should only add an unit to the number of Bedlamites.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Letter (1816-11-11) to Matthew Carey
(Source)

Mistakenly identified in some sources as Archibald Carey.

Franklin, Benjamin -- Poor Richard (1743 ed.)

Dave — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 08:42:01 +0000

Men differ daily, about things which are subject to Sense, is it likely then they should agree about things invisible.

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) American statesman, scientist, philosopher, aphorist
Poor Richard (1743 ed.)
(Source)