(W)e keep on assuming that we know the play. We do not even know whether we are in Act I or Act V. We do not know who are the major and who the minor characters. The Author knows.
A little comic relief in a discussion does no harm, however serious the topic may be.
A little lie is like a little pregnancy- it doesn't take long before everyone knows.
A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on the walls of his cell.
A man can't be always defending the truth; there must be a time for him to feed on it.
A man is fairly sober as long as he knows he's drunk.
An explanation of cause is not a justification by reason.
As long as one knows one is proud, one is safe from the worst form of pride.
Atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning...
Autumn is really the best of the seasons; and I'm not sure that old age isn't the best part of life. But of course, like autumn, it doesn't last.
But probably every age gets, within certain limits, the science it deserves.
Crying is all right in its way while it lasts. But you have to stop sooner or later, and then you still have to decide what to do.
Democracy demands that little men should not take big ones too seriously; it dies when it is full of little men who think they are big themselves.
Do not let us mistake necessary evils for good.
Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive, as we had during the war. And then, to mention the subject at all is to be greeted with howls of anger.
For believers there are no questions, and for unbelievers there are no answers.
For who can endure a doctrine which would allow only dentists to say whether our teeth were aching, only cobblers to say whether our shoes hurt us, and only governments to tell us whether we were being well governed?
Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.
God wants us to grow up.
Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered.
Has this world been so kind to you that you should leave with regret? There are better things ahead than any we leave behind.
He that but looketh on a plate of ham and eggs to lust after it hath already committed breakfast with it in his heart.
He who surrenders himself without reservation to the temporal claims of a nation, or a party, or a class is rendering to Caesar that which, of all things, most emphatically belongs to God: himself.
I am often, I believe, praying for others when I should be doing things for them. It's so much easier to pray for a bore than to go and see him.
I sometimes think that shame, mere awkward, senseless shame, does as much towards preventing good acts and straightforward happiness as any of our vices do.
I wonder whether people who ask God to interfere openly and directly in our world quite realize what it will be like when He does. When that happens, it is the end of the world. When the author walks onto the stage, the play is over.
If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.
If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair.
If you think of this world as a place intended simply for our happiness, you find it quite intolerable: think of it as a place of training and correction and it's not so bad.
If you think you are not conceited, it means you are very conceited indeed.
It is Christ Himself, not the Bible, who is the true word of God. The Bible, read in the right spirit and with the guidance of good teachers, will bring us to Him.
It is clear that there never was a time when nothing existed; otherwise nothing would exist now.
It is quite useless knocking at the door of heaven for earthly comfort; it's not the sort of comfort they supply there.
It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this. Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in; aim at earth and you will get neither.
It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.
Justice means equality for equals, and inequality for unequals.
Language exists to communicate whatever it can communicate. Some things it communicates so badly that we never attempt to communicate them by words if any other medium is available.
Let's pray that the human race never escapes from Earth to spread its iniquity elsewhere.
Never, never pin your whole faith on any human being; not if he is the best and wisest in the whole world. There are lots of nice things you can do with sand, but do not try building a house on it.
No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good.
No one can deceive you unless he makes you think he is telling the truth.
No one ever told me grief felt so much like fear.
Nothing can deceive unless it bears a plausible resemblance to reality.
Nothing is more likely to destroy a species or a nation than a determination to survive at all costs.
Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours.
Now the trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed.
Odd the way the less the Bible is read, the more it is translated.
Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.
Often when I pray I wonder if I am not posting letters to a non-existent address.
Only a real risk tests the reality of a belief.
Pain insists on being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts to us in our pain. It is God's megaphone to rouse a deaf world.
She's the sort of woman who lives for others. You can tell the others by their hunted expression.
Suspicion often creates what it suspects.
The best way that a man could test his readiness to encounter the common variety of mankind would be to climb down a chimney into any house at random, and get on as well as possible with the people inside. And that is essentially what each one of us did on the day that he was born.
The process of growing up is to be valued for what we gain, not for what we lose.
The safest road to Hell is the gradual one- the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.
The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts.
There are two kinds of people: those that say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.'
There can be intemperance in work just as in drink.
There is no neutral ground in the universe.
Think of me as a fellow-patient in the same hospital who, having been admitted a little earlier, could give some advice.
To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket-safe, dark, motionless, airless- it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.
We all want progress, but if you're on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.
We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be.
We are quite ignorant of the real power of our habits until we try to give them up.
We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and then bid the geldings to be fruitful.
We're not doubting that God will do the best for us; we're wondering how painful the best will turn out to be.
What do people mean when they say 'I am not afraid of God because I know He is good?' Have they never even been to a dentist?
What sinners remember best is that they were happy while sinning.
When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.
Why is it that one can never think of the past without wanting to go back?
You do not 'have' a soul- you ARE a soul. You 'have' a body.
You must not isolate (sexual) pleasure and try to get it by itself, any more than you ought to try to get the pleasures of taste without swallowing and digesting, by chewing things and spitting them out again.
You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you.
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