Those who have nothing can share nothing; those who are going nowhere can have no fellow-travellers.
The central Christian belief is that Christ’s death has somehow put us right with God and given us a fresh start. Theories as to how it did this are another matter. A good many different theories have been held as to how it works; what all Christians are agreed on is that it does work.
But probably every age gets, within certain limits, the science it deserves.
Unless the religious claims of the Bible are again acknowledged, its literary claims will, I think, be given only ‘mouth honour’ and that decreasingly.
For the wise men of old the cardinal problem had been how to conform the soul to reality. For magic and applied science alike the problem is how to subdue reality to the wishes of men.
Which of the religions of the world gives to its followers the greatest happiness? While it lasts, the religion of worshiping oneself is best.
Every poet and musician and artist, but for grace, is drawn away from love of the things he tells to love of the telling...
The basic proposal of the new education is to be that dunces and idlers must not be made to feel inferior to intelligent and industrious pupils. That would be ’undemocratic.
What the soul cries out for is the resurrection of the senses. Even in this life, matter would be nothing to us if it were not the source of sensations.
Man was appointed by God to have dominion over the beasts, and everything a man does to an animal is either a lawful exercise or a sacrilegious abuse of an authority by divine right.
Man, even now, can do wonders to animals: my cat and dog live together in my house and seem to like it. It may have been one of man’s functions to restore peace to the animal world, and if he had not joined the enemy he might have succeeded in doing so to an extent now hardly imaginable.
Nobody who gets enough food and clothing in a world where most are hungry and cold has any business to talk about ‘misery.’
In order that we finite beings may apprehend the Emporer He translates His glory into multiple forms – into stars, woods, waters, beasts, and the bodies of men.
You understand sleep when you are awake, not while you are sleeping. You can see mistakes in arithmetic when your mind is working properly; while you are making them you cannot see them. Good people know about both bad and evil; bad people do not know about either.
Progress means movement in a desired direction, and we do not all desire the same things for our species.
The question about progress has become the question whether we can discover any way of submitting to the worldwide paternalism of a technocracy without losing all personal privacy and independence. Is there any possibility of getting the super Welfare State’s honey and avoiding the sting?
As a Christian I take it for granted that human history will some day end; and I am offering Omniscience no advice as to the best date for that consummation.
Bad art is never really enjoyed in the same sense in which good art is enjoyed. It is only “liked”: it never startles, prostrates, and takes captive.
The desire for bad art is the desire bred of habit: like the smoker’s desire for tobacco, more marked by the extreme malaise of denial than by any very strong delight in fruition.
Into the void of silence, into the empty space of nothing, the joy of life is unfurled.