"That man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling can preserve an individual beyond the grave; that all the labors of all the ages, all the devotion, all the aspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins - all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand."
-- Bertrand Russell
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
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2 comments:
"noonday brightness of human genius". What a writer and a thinker ol' Bertie was.
Why don't people read him much these days, I wonder?
people these days prefer their thinkers to be self-improvement type people who write books as if they are preparing powerpoint slides (7 habits, 24 ways etc...), thinkers who flatter people's illusions and smug assumptions about their lives...
thinkers like Russell won't sell in this culture.
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