William Ralph Inge

Quotes by William Ralph Inge

• The world as it is is the world as God sees it, not as we see it. Our vision is distorted, not so much by the limits of finitude as by sin and ignorance. But the more we raise ourselves in the scale of being, the more will our ideas about God and the world correspond to reality.

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• It is quite natural and inevitable that, if we spend sixteen hours daily of our waking lives in thinking about the affairs of the world and five minutes in thinking about God and our souls, this world will seem two hundred times more real to us than God.

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• It is quite natural and inevitable that, if we spend sixteen hours daily of our waking lives in thinking about the affairs of the world and five minutes in thinking about God and our souls, this world will seem two hundred times more real to us than God.

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• The world as it is is the world as God sees it, not as we see it. Our vision is distorted, not so much by the limits of finitude as by sin and ignorance. But the more we raise ourselves in the scale of being, the more will our ideas about God and the world correspond to reality.

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• We have enslaved the rest of the animal creation, and have treated our distant cousins in fur and feathers so badly that beyond doubt, if they were able to formulate a religion, they would depict the Devil in human form.

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• ... Christianity is a system of radical optimism.

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• The whole of nature, as has been said, is a conjugation of the verb to eat, in the active and passive.

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• The aim of education is the knowledge not of facts but of values.

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• Admiration for ourselves and our institutions is too often measured by our contempt and dislike for foreigners.

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• The game of life is worth playing, but the struggle is the prize.

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• Each generation takes a special pleasure in removing the household gods of its parents from their pedestals, and consigning them to the cupboard.

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• A good government remains the greatest of human blessings, and no nation has ever enjoyed it.

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• The happiest people seem to be those who have no particular reason for being happy except that they are so.

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• Happy people are those who are producing something.

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• Every institution not only carries within it the seeds of its own dissolution, but prepares the way for its most hated rival.

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• In imperialism nothing fails like success. If the conqueror oppresses his subjects, they will become fanatical patriots, and sooner or later have their revenge; if he treats them well, and governs them for their good, they will multiply faster than their rulers, till they claim their independence.

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• A monarch frequently represents his subjects better than an elected assembly; and if he is a good judge of character he is likely to have more capable and loyal advisers.

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• The fruit of the tree of knowledge always drives man from some paradise or other; and even the paradise of fools is not an unpleasant abode while it is habitable.

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• Literature flourishes best when it is half a trade and half an art.

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• Man as we know him is a poor creature; but he is half-way between an ape and a god, and he is travelling in the right direction.

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