Top 74 Quotes & Sayings by William Ralph Inge

No word in our language - not even "Socialism" - has been employed more loosely than "Mysticism." The history of the word begins in close connexion with the Greek mysteries. A mystic is one who has been, or is being, initiated into some esoteric knowledge of Divine things, about which he must keep his mouth shut.

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

Faith begins as an experiment, and ends as an experience.

The right use of leisure is no doubt a harder problem than the right use of our working hours. The soul is dyed the color of its leisure thoughts.

The great discovery of the nineteenth century, that we are of one blood with the lower animals, has created new ethical obligations which have not yet penetrated the public conscience. The clerical profession has been lamentably remiss in preaching this obvious duty.

Nature takes away any faculty that is not used.

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.

They who will live for others shall have great troubles, but they shall seem to them small. Those who will live for themselves shall have small troubles, but they shall seem to them great.

Over-population is a phenomenon connected with the survival of the unfit, and it is a mechanism which has created conditions favourable to the survival of the unfit and the elimination of the fit.

Our test is infallible. Whatever view of reality deepens our sense of the tremendous issues of life in the world wherein we move, is for us nearer the truth than any view which diminishes that sense.

There is no law of progress. Our future is in our own hands, to make or to mar. It will be an uphill fight to the end, and would we have it otherwise? Let no one suppose that evolution will ever exempt us from struggles. 'You forget,' said the Devil, with a chuckle, 'that I have been evolving too.

Take away fear, and the battle of Freedom is half won.

A man is never so truly and intensely himself as when he is most possessed by God. It is impossible to say where, in the spiritual life, the human will leaves off and divine grace begins.

The soul is dyed by the color of its leisure hours.

For better or worse, man is the tool-using animal, and as such he has become the lord of creation. When he is lord also of himself, he will deserve his self-chosen title homo sapiens.

Civilization is being poisoned by its own waste products.

Beautiful thoughts hardly bring us to God until they are acted upon. No one can have a true idea of right until he does it.

When our first parents were driven out of Paradise, Adam is believed to have remarked to Eve, "My dear, we live in an age of transition."

"This is old, therefore it is good"; the other says, "This is new, therefore it is better."

The happy people are those who are producing something; the bored people are those who are consuming much and producing nothing.

The modern world belongs to the half-educated, a rather difficult class, because they do not realize how little they know.

Faith is an act of self-consecration, in which the will, the intellect, and the affections all have their place.

Joy is the triumph of life; it is the sign that we are living our true life as spiritual beings.

The church is only a secular institution in which the half-educated speak to the half-converted.

Religion is caught, not taught.

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

The command, 'Be fruitful and multiply', was promulgated, according to our authorities, when the population of the world consisted of two persons.

The object of studying philosophy is to know one's own mind, not other peoples.

The church that is married to the spirit of this age, becomes a widow in the next.

The vulgar mind always mistakes the exceptional for the important.

Experience proves that none is so cruel as the disillusioned sentimentalist.

Christianity promises to make men free; it never promises to make them independent.

The greatest obstacle to progress is not man's inherited pugnacity, but his incorrigible tendency to parasitism.

Deliberate cruelty to our defenceless and beautiful little cousins is surely one of the meanest and most detestable vices of which a human being can be guilty.

We should think of the church as an orchestra in which the different churches play on different instruments while a Divine Conductor calls the tune.

Boredom is a certain sign that we are allowing our faculties to rust in idleness.

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

We must cut our coat according to our cloth, and adapt ourselves to changing circumstances.

The statistics of suicide show that, for non-combatants at least, life is more interesting in war than in peace.

Philosophy means thinking things out for oneself. Ultimately, there can be only one true philosophy, since reason is one and we all live in the same world.

Man will never be entirely willing to give up this world for the next nor the next world for this.

The Devil deserves zero tolerance.

Hatred toward any human being cannot exist in the same heart as love to God.

Experience is a good teacher, but her fees are very high.

The happy people are those who are producing something.

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.

The jealous man is so preoccupied with what he hasn't got that he fails to appreciate the value of what he has got. He loses the ability to feel glad because the sun is shining. He doesn't see the wonder and the newness of the beginning of spring.

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

Civilization is a disease which is almost invariably fatal.

Patriotism varies, from a noble devotion to a moral lunacy.

It is becoming impossible for those who mix at all with their fellow-men to believe that the grace of God is distributed denominationally.

If we feel that any habit or pursuit, harmless in itself, is keeping us from God and sinking us deeper in the things of earth; if we find that things which others can do with impunity are for us the occasion of falling, then abstinence is our only course. Abstinence alone can recover for us the real value of what should have been for our help but which has been an occasion of falling. ... It is necessary that we should steadily resolve to give up anything that comes between ourselves and God.

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

Originality, I fear, is too often only undetected and frequently unconscious plagiarism.

The average man is rich enough when he has a little more than he has got.

Don't break the silence unless you can improve on it.

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

There is no limit to the noble aspirations which the words "my country" may evoke.

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

Lutheranism is essentially German... It worships a God who is neither just nor merciful.