Each generation exercises power over its successors: and each, in so far as it modifies the environment bequeathed to it and rebels against tradition, resists and limits the power of its predecessors.

Peter did not feel very brave; indeed, he felt he was going to be sick. But that made no difference to what he had to do.

Agnostics talk cheerfully of man's search for God but they might as well talk about the mouse's search for the cat.

A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.

Human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to believe in a certain way, and can't really get rid of it.

Well, you know how it feels if you begin hoping for something that you want desperately badly; you almost fight against the hope because it is too good to be true; you've been disappointed so often before.

Both good and evil, when they are full grown, become retrospective...That is what mortals misunderstand. They say of some temporary suffering, 'No future bliss can make up for it,' not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory. And of some sinful pleasure they say 'Let me but have this and I'll take the consequences': little dreaming how damnation will spread back and back into their past and contaminate the pleasure of the sin.