William Ralph Inge Quotes

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.

Worry is interest paid on trouble before it comes due.

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

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

A cat can be trusted to purr when she is pleased, which is more than can be said for human beings.

The happy people are those who are producing something.

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

What is originality? Undetected plagiarism.

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

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

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

Democracy is only an experiment in government, and it has the obvious disadvantage of merely counting votes instead of weighing them.

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

Originality is undetected plagiarism.

The wealth of a soul is measured by how much it can feel; its poverty by how little.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gambling is a disease of barbarians superficially civilized.

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

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

The wisdom of the wise is an uncommon degree of common sense.

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

Whoever marries the spirit of this age will find himself a widower in the next.

Let us remember, when we are inclined to be disheartened, that the private soldier is a poor judge of the fortunes of a great battle.

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.

The world belongs to those who think and act with it, who keep a finger on its pulse.

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

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

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

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

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."

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

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

Bereavement is the sharpest challenge to our trust in God; if faith can overcome this, there is no mountain which it cannot remove.

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

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.

The proper time to influence the character of a child is about a hundred years before he is born.

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

Beneath the dingy uniformity of international fashions in dress, man remains what he has always been; a splendid fighting animal, a self-sacrificing hero, and a blood thirsty savage.

The effect of boredom on a large scale in history is underestimated. It is a main cause of revolutions, and would soon bring to an end all the static Utopias and the farmyard civilization of the Fabians.

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

I have no fear that the candle lighted in Palestine years ago will ever be put out.