“[One] must look into hell before one has any right to speak of heaven.”
Letter to Colette O'Niel, October 23, 1916; published in The Selected Letters of Bertrand Russell: The Public Years, 1914-1970, p. 87
1910s
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Bertrand Russell562
logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and politi… 1872–1970Related quotes
Jim Steinman (1947) American musician
"Bad for Good"
Bad for Good (1981)
Context: For the good of believing in a life after birth
For the good of your body so bright
For the good of the search for some heaven on earth
For the good of one hell of a night, for
the good of one hell of a night.
Friedrich Nietzsche book On the Genealogy of Morality
Essay 3, Aphorism 10
On the Genealogy of Morality (1887)
Variant: Whoever, at any time, has undertaken to build a new heaven has found the strength for it in his own hell...
“The sinner must feel far worse before he ever has a right to feel any better.”
John F. MacArthur (1939) American pastor and author
2000s, Saved or Self-Deceived, Part 2 (2007)
Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman
1890s, Speech at Tremont Temple (1890)
Max Beckmann (1884–1950) German painter, draftsman, printmaker, sculptor and writer
1930s, On my Painting (1938)
“Politicians promise you heaven before election and give you hell after”
Emma Goldman (1868–1940) anarchist known for her political activism, writing, and speeches
Friedrich Nietzsche book Beyond Good and Evil
Beyond Good and Evil, translated by Marianne Cowan [Henry Regnery Company, 1955, p. 139]; Jenseits von Gut und Böse [Philipp Reclam, Stuttgart, 1988, p. 130]