"I am not a Marxist, but I have learnt much from Marxists, and I am not anti-Marxist. If I had to choose (which heaven forefend) between Marxism and Christian orthodoxy I think I should have to plump for Marxism, in spite of the fact that Christianity has the core of truth which Marxism lacks. Marxism and Christianity spring from the same emotional experience, but each in its way misinterprets, falsifies. Marxism by simply denying its validity, Christianity by smothering it under doctrines. I should choose Marxism because I believe that it is pointing the way beyond itself to a deeper, more purged sort of spirituality than Christian orthodoxy can ever arouse in our day … Roughly I may put it that Marx, with all his extravagance, made a positive contribution which we must not ignore. A contribution to a revival of the spiritual attitude, I mean. Frankly, I suspect that there was more of the true spirit in Lenin (or even Haldane) than in most bishops and certainly far more in some quite humble and in many ways objectionable Communists."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Novelists from EnglandPhilosophers from EnglandAcademics from the United KingdomScience fiction authors from the United KingdomPeople from Liverpool
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Letter to Ernest W. Martin, 16 January 1945, excerpted in Socialism and Religion: Roads to Common Wealth
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Olaf_Stapledon
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Olaf Stapledon
William Olaf Stapledon (10 May 1886 – 6 September 1950) was a British philosopher and author of several influential works of science fiction. His best known, and what he considered as his best work, was Star Maker (1937), which included the first known description of a Dyson sphere. The Dyson sphere was later described by Freeman Dyson in the 1959 article "Search for Artificial Stellar Sources of Infra-Red Radiation" in Science, as one possible method of locating extraterrestrial intelligence.
117 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Olaf Stapledon →
Related Quotes
"Today we should welcome, and even study, every serious attempt to envisage the future of our race; not merely in orde…"
"Long before the human spirit awoke to clear cognizance of the world and itself, it sometimes stirred in its sleep, op…"
"Socrates woke to the ideal of dispassionate intelligence, Jesus to the ideal of passionate yet self-oblivious worship…"
"As the months of agony advanced, there was bred in the warring peoples a genuine and even passionate will for peace a…"
"In some minds the defence of the human spirit was sincerely identified with the defence of a particular nation, conce…"
"The economic life of the human race had for some time been based on coal, but latterly oil had been found a far more …"
"In the Far West, the United States of America openly claimed to be custodians of the whole planet. Universally feared…"
"Thus it was that America sank further and further into Americanism. Vast wealth and industry, and also brilliant inve…"
"But the most lasting agony of this war was suffered, not by the defeated, but by the victors. For when their passion …"
"The precept, “Love thy neighbor as thyself,” breeds in us most often the disposition to see one’s neighbor merely as …"