“It is not to be supposed that young men and women who are busy acquiring valuable specialized knowledge can spare a great deal of time for the study of philosophy, but even in the time that can easily be spared without injury to the learning of technical skills, philosophy can give certain things that will greatly increase the student’s value as a human being and as a citizen. It can give a habit of exact and careful thought, not only in mathematics and science, but in questions of large practical import. It can give an impersonal breadth and scope to the conception of the ends of life. It can give to the individual a just measure of himself in relation to society, of man in the present to man in the past and in the future, and of the whole history of man in relation to the astronomical cosmos. By enlarging the objects of his thoughts it supplies an antidote to the anxieties and anguish of the present, and makes possible the nearest approach to serenity that is available to a sensitive mind in our tortured and uncertain world.”

1940s, Philosophy for Laymen (1946)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 29, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "It is not to be supposed that young men and women who are busy acquiring valuable specialized knowledge can spare a gre…" by Bertrand Russell?

Bertrand Russell562

logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and politi… 1872–1970

Related quotes

“Science gives us knowledge, but only philosophy can give us wisdom.”

Will Durant (1885–1981) American historian, philosopher and writer

“No artist can develop without increasing his self-knowledge; but self-knowledge supposes a certain preoccupation with the meaning of human life and the destiny of man.”

Colin Wilson (1931–2013) author

Source: The Strength To Dream (1961), p. 197
Context: No artist can develop without increasing his self-knowledge; but self-knowledge supposes a certain preoccupation with the meaning of human life and the destiny of man. A definite set of beliefs — Methodist Christianity, for example — may only be a hindrance to development; but it is not more so than Beckett's refusal to think at all. Shaw says somewhere that all intelligent men must be preoccupied with either religion, politics, or sex. (He seems to attribute T. E. Lawrence's tragedy to his refusal to come to grips with any of them.) It is hard to see how an artist could hope to achieve any degree of self-knowledge without being deeply concerned with at least one of the three.

“But anyone with the time and the inclination can acquire technical proficiency. To achieve greatness, though, that requires artistry. That requires imagination and thoughtfulness…”

Christopher Paolini book Inheritance

Source: Inheritance

“Science can only be comprehended epistemologically, which means as one category of possible knowledge, as long as knowledge is not equated either effusively with the absolute knowledge of a great philosophy or blindly with scientistic self-understanding of the actual business of research.”

Jürgen Habermas book Knowledge and Human Interests

Source: Knowledge and Human Interests, 1971, p. 4

“Although what is called ‘philosophical speculation’ is undoubtedly on the decline, many of the practically minded have not yet freed themselves from a method of reasoning, which, in the last analysis, has its roots in theology and metaphysics. No science which pretends to be exact can accept an untested theory or doctrine; yet even in an exact science there is often an admixture of magic, theology, and philosophy. It is one of the tasks of our time to aid scientific reasoning to attain its goal without hindrance. Whoever undertakes this is concerned not so much with ‘philosophy,’ properly speaking, as with ‘anti-philosophy.’ For him there is but one science with subdivisions — a unified science of sciences. We have a science that deals with rocks, another that deals with plants, a third that deals with animals, but we need a science that unites them all.”

Otto Neurath (1882–1945) austrian economist, philosopher and sociologist

Otto Neurath (1931) "Physicalism: The Philosophy of the Viennese Circle," in: The Monist, Vol. 41, No. 4 (October, 1931), pp. 618-623; Lead paragraph
1930s

“To teach how to live without certainty, and yet without being paralyzed by hesitation, is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age, can still do for those who study it.”

Bertrand Russell book A History of Western Philosophy

Source: A History of Western Philosophy

“Some students of philosophy have unreasonably high expectations of the subject. They expect it to provide them with a complete and detailed picture of the human predicament. They think that philosophy will reveal to them the meaning of life, and explain to them every facet of our complex existences. Now, although studying philosophy can illuminate fundamental questions about our lives, it does not provide anything like a complete picture, if indeed there could be such a thing. Studying philosophy isn’t an alternative to studying art, literature, history, psychology, anthropology, sociology, politics, and science.”

Nigel Warburton (1962) British author and lecturer

Philosophy : the basics (Fifth Edition, 2013), Introduction

“Management is a business skill; you can study it and learn about it. Leadership is a human skill; to become a better leader you need to learn more about humans, starting with yourself.”

Kent Thiry (1956) Business; CEO of DaVita

University of Colorado Leeds School of Business Commencement Address (2013)