When Catholicism goes bad it becomes the religion of amulets and holy places and priestcraft: Protestantism, in its corresponding decay, becomes a vague mist of ethical platitudes.
The choice of every lost soul can be expressed in the words “Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.” There is always something they insist on keeping, even at the price of misery.
If you are a Christian, you are free to think that all these religions, even the queerest ones, contain at least some hint of the truth.
The true Christian’s nostril is to be continually attentive to the inner cesspool.
If you could see humanity spread out in time, as God sees it, it would look like one single growing thing-rather like a very complicated tree. Every individual would appear connected with every other.
No man who values originality will ever be original. But try to tell the truth as you see it, try to do any bit of work as well as it can be done for the work’s sake, and what men call originality will come unsought...
First be sure that you know exactly what you want to say. Then be sure you have said exactly that.
I dread specialists in power because they are specialists speaking outside of their special subject.
There is a story about a schoolboy who was asked what he thought God was like. He replied that, as far as he could make out, God was ‘the sort of person who is always snooping around to see if anyone is enjoying himself and then trying to stop it.’
I would prefer to battle the ‘I’m special’ feeling not by the thought, ‘I’m no more special than anyone else,’ by by the feeling, ‘Everyone is as special as me.’
I think it very wrong to pray for people while they are in distress and then not to continue praying, now with thanksgiving, when they are relieved.
Many people think their prayers are never answered because it is the answered ones they forget.
Prayer is request. The essence of request, as distinct from compulsion, is that it may or may not be granted. And if an infinitely wise Being listens to the requests of finite and foolish creatures, of course He will sometimes grant and sometimes refuse them.
The longer we stay in Hell, the more we become attached to it.
Joy bursts in our lives when we go about doing the good at hand and not trying to manipulate things and times to achieve joy.
As St. Paul points out, Christ never meant that we were to remain children in intelligence: on the contrary, He told us to be not only “as harmless as doves,” but also “as wise as serpents.” He wants a child’s heart, but a grown-up’s head.
The Christian and the Materialist hold different beliefs about the universe. They can’t both be right. The one who is wrong will act in a way which simply doesn’t fit the real universe. Consequently, with the best will in the world, he will be helping his fellow creatures to their destruction.
A God. The God. One word can make all the difference in the world.
If religion does not make us better people, it will make us very much worse. And of all the bad men who have lived, the religious “bad man” is the worst of all.
Term, holidays, term, holidays, till we leave school, and then work, work, work till we die.