topics: |  autobiography | philosophy

Quotation

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the
longing for love, the search for knowledge, and the unbearable pity for the
suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither
and thither ...over a deep oceanof anguish, reaching to the very verge of
despair. - p.1
[Of his grandmother] She gave me a Bible with her favourite texts
written on the flyleaf. Among these was "Thou shalt not follow a
multitude to do evil." Her emphasis upon this text led me in later life
to be not afraid of belonging to small minorities.  - p.18

Champion of intellectual, social and sexual freedom, campaigner for peace and
for civil and human rights, Bertrand Russell remains one of the greatest and
most complex and controversial figures of the twentieth century. His
childhood was bitterly lonely but rich in experience. His adulthood was spent
grappling with both his own beliefs and the problems of the universe and
mankind, and the pursuit of love and permanent happiness which resulted in
five marriages. This new edition of Russell'sAutobiography, available for the
first time in one volume, shares a life of incredible variety, and is told
with vigor, charm and total frankness.

I saw that he was right, and I saw that I could not hope ever again to do
fundamental work in philosophy. [about Wittgenstein] p.282

Russell, in letter to a student:
   Be isolated, be ignored, be attacked, be in doubt, be frightened, but
   never be silenced.