Top 21 Quotes & Sayings by Ronald Knox

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an English theologian Ronald Knox.

Last updated on December 22, 2024.

Ronald Arbuthnott Knox was an English Catholic priest, theologian, author, and radio broadcaster. Educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford, where he earned a high reputation as a classicist, Knox was ordained as a priest of the Church of England in 1912. He was a fellow and chaplain of Trinity College, Oxford until he resigned from those positions following his conversion to Catholicism in 1917. Knox became a Catholic priest in 1918, continuing in that capacity his scholarly and literary work.

English - Theologian | February 17, 1888 - 1957

Source: Wikipedia

The hall-mark of American humour is its pose of illiteracy.

Ronald Knox

When suave politeness, tempering bigot zeal, corrected 'I believe' to 'one does feel'.

Ronald Knox

A good sermon should be like a woman's skirt: short enough to arouse interest but long enough to cover the essentials.

Ronald Knox

It is so stupid of modern civilisation to have given up believing in the devil when he is the only explanation of it.

Ronald Knox

A baby is a loud noise at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.

Ronald Knox

Only man has dignity; only man, therefore, can be funny.

Ronald Knox

It doesn't do to say that heresy produces the development of doctrine, because that annoys the theologians. But it is true to say that as a matter of history the development of doctrine has been largely a reaction on the Church's part to the attacks of heresy.

Ronald Knox

All men who have ideals . . . live by some kind of faith, by committing themselves to some kind of loyalty which is not universally recognized as the common property of all thinking men. They must have something-something outside themselves, to make them feel life is worth living, that good rather than evil is the explanation of the world.

Ronald Knox

He who travels in the Barque of Peter had better not look too closely into the engine room.

Ronald Knox

O God, for as much as without Thee We are not enabled to doubt Thee, Help us all by Thy grace To convince the whole race It knows nothing whatever about Thee.

Ronald Knox

Only those of us, I think, who were born under Queen Victoria know what it feels like to assume, without questioning, that England is permanently top nation, that foreigners do not matter, and that if the worst comes to the worst, Lord Salisbury will send a gunboat.

Ronald Knox

Long before I had ever seen a ritualistic service I became a Ritualist.

Ronald Knox

The difference between the Old and the New Testament is the difference between a man who said "There is nothing new under the sun" and a God who says "Behold, I make all things new.

Ronald Knox

The prevailing attitude of the speakers was one of heavy disagreement with a number of things which the reader had not said.

Ronald Knox

Only man had dignity; only man, therefore, can be funny.

Ronald Knox

Knox was engaged in a theological discussion with scientist John Scott Haldane. 'In a universe containing millions of planets,' reasoned Haldane, 'is it not inevitable that life should appear on at least one of them?' 'Sir,' replied Knox, 'if Scotland Yard found a body in your cabin trunk, would you tell them: 'There are millions of trunks in the world; surely one of them must contain a body? I think the would still want to know who put it there'.

Ronald Knox

If you have a sloppy religion you get a sloppy atheism.

Ronald Knox

Always tell the truth, and people will never believe you.

Ronald Knox

The great argument used now against any theological proposition is not, that it is untrue, or unthinkable, or unedifying, or unscriptural, or unorthodox, but simply, that the modern mind cannot accept it.

Ronald Knox