“Men tend to have the beliefs that suit their passions. Cruel men believe in a cruel God, and use their belief to excuse their cruelty. Only kindly men believe in a kindly God, and they would be kindly in any case.”
In London Calling http://books.google.pt/books?id=l80fAQAAMAAJ&q=%22Men+tend+to+have+the+beliefs+that+suit+their+passions.%22&dq=%22Men+tend+to+have+the+beliefs+that+suit+their+passions.%22&hl=pt-PT&sa=X&ei=q9mEUcj-AoqM7AbW3IGoBQ&ved=0CFMQ6AEwBw (1947), p. 18
1940s
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Bertrand Russell 562
logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and politi… 1872–1970Related quotes

Witchcraft
Literary Essays, vol. II (1870–1890)

“What mean and cruel things men can do for the love of God.”
"1901", p. 67
A Writer's Notebook (1946)

“Intelligent men are cruel. Stupid men are monstrously cruel.”
The Star Rover
Variant: Intelligent men are cruel. Stupid men are monstrously cruel

“To God, and not to man, are all men to account for their belief.”
1790s, Discourse to the Theophilanthropists (1798)
Context: It was the excess to which imaginary systems of religion had been carried, and the intolerance, persecutions, burnings, and massacres, they occasioned, that first induced certain persons to propagate infidelity; thinking, that upon the whole, that it was better not to believe at all, than to believe a multitude of things and complicated creeds, that occasioned so much mischief in the world. But those days are past, persecution has ceased, and the antidote then set up against it has no longer even the shadow of apology. We profess, and we proclaim in peace, the pure, unmixed, comfortable, and rational belief of a God, as manifested to us in the universe. We do this without any apprehension of that belief being made a cause of persecution as other beliefs have been, or of suffering persecution ourselves. To God, and not to man, are all men to account for their belief.

“Live simply, love generously, care deeply, speak kindly, leave the rest to God.”
"God Calls Me God"
Source: Anatomy of Britain Today (1965), Chapter 18.

God and Man
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part II - Elementary Morality