British philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) was a man of great intellectual honesty. He was an atheist and a pacifist at a time when it was rare and extremely unpopular to be either. He even went to prison for his pacifism during the First World War. (He later said “I found prison in many ways quite agreeable. I read enormously.”)
Russell wasn’t just smart and knowledgeable, he was also very kind and humble. He once said “I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.” You’ll never hear a religious person say that. I put together my favourite ten quotes by him, in no particular order.
1. “War does not determine who is right, only who is left.”
2. “Three passions have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and the unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.”
3. “So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.”
4. “Patriots always talk of dying for their country and never of killing for their country.”
5. “The more intense has been the religion of any period, the greater has been the cruelty and the worse has been the state of affairs”.
6. “The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd.”
7. “I say people who feel they must have a faith or religion in order to face life are showing a kind of cowardice.”
8. “I have been accused of a habit of changing my opinions. I am not myself in any degree ashamed of having changed my opinions.”
9. “One is often told it is wrong to attack religion, because it makes men virtuous. So I am told. I have not noticed it.”
10. “Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.”
