Truth Teller #19 Lord Bertrand Russell

 Mathematician and Philosopher Bertrand Russell was jailed for his opposition to the First World War. Although willing to be jailed for what he believed, he was not dogmatic. He famously remarked “I would never die for my beliefs, I might be wrong.”

Truth Teller #14 Primo Levi

 Truth Teller # 14, Primo Levi ~ 174517 was the number tattooed on Primo Levi’s forearm as part of the Nazi effort to break him, and millions of others down to subhuman. Through luck, chemistry and sheer will he survived Auschwitz, and returned to his home in Turin, Italy. A chemist by training and a writer by necessity, he wrote of life in the camps with remarkable restraint, letting the horrors of the mass murder carried out by the Nazis speak for themselves, and trusting the reader to hear.

Truth teller #13 Frederick Douglass

Truth Teller #13 Frederick Douglass. Douglass escaped slavery to become one of its greatest foes. An eloquent speaker and writer, he used his gifts to argue against the evil of the “peculiar institution“ and became the leading advocate for the abolition of slavery in America.

 

Starting a New Series Celebrating Truth Tellers

Truth is coercive. We acknowledge this with phrases like “I have to say” or “I must admit.” The truth can also be uncomfortable or downright onerous, those who speak it can become outcasts. Mark Twain wrote only dead men can tell the whole truth in this world. But in a time way too many of our bullshit detectors seem to be malfunctioning, we need truth tellers urgently. So I am starting a series of portraits celebrating truth tellers. This is, I must admit, partly because I am sick of drawing liars. It is my pleasure to introduce Truth Teller #1, Mark Twain

Truth Teller #7 Edmund Burke

Truth Teller #7 Edmund Burke. I will throw conservatives a bone here by quoting the father of modern conservatism. I think his observation that government is a pact between the dead, the living and the yet born is majestic, concise and true today as it was when he wrote the words in the late 1700s. But now that we have the power to wipe humanity off the planet, I believe the meaning of that truth has changed.