William Ralph Inge Quotes

To become a popular religion, it is only necessary for a superstition to enslave a philosophy.

The enemies of freedom do not argue; they shout and they shoot.

Many people believe that they are attracted by God, or by Nature, when they are only repelled by man.

In dealing with Englishmen you can be sure of one thing only, that the logical solution will not be adopted.

I have never understood why it should be considered derogatory to the Creator to suppose that he has a sense of humour.

A man may build himself a throne of bayonets, but he can't sit on it.

Public opinion, a vulgar, impertinent, anonymous tyrant who deliberately makes life unpleasant for anyone who is not content to the average person.

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

I think middle-age is the best time, if we can escape the fatty degeneration of the conscience which often sets in at about fifty.

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

Consciousness is a phase of mental life which arises in connection with the formation of new habits. When habit is formed, consciousness only interferes to spoil our performance.

Events in the past may be roughly divided into those which probably never happened and those which do not matter.

No Christian can be a pessimist, for Christianity is a system of radical optimism.

Prayer gives a man the opportunity of getting to know a gentleman he hardly ever meets. I do not mean his maker, but himself.

It is astonishing with how little wisdom mankind can be governed, when that little wisdom is its own.

There are no rewards or punishments - only consequences.

Originality is undetected plagiarism.

Theater is, of course, a reflection of life. Maybe we have to improve life before we can hope to improve theater.

Nobody is bored when he is trying to make something that is beautiful or to discover something that is true.

It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favor of vegetarianism, while the wolf remains of a different opinion.

A nation is a society united by a delusion about its ancestry and by common hatred of its neighbours.

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

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

Worry is interest paid on trouble before it comes due.

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.