True friends don’t spend time gazing into each other’s eyes. They may show great tenderness towards each other but they face in the same direction - toward common projects, goals - above all, towards a common Lord.

Whenever a person dwells chiefly, or even frequently, on the faults of other people's religions, he is in a bad condition.

For the wise men of old the cardinal problem had been how to conform the soul to reality. For magic and applied science alike the problem is how to subdue reality to the wishes of men.

I was driven to Whipsnade one sunny morning. When we set out I did not believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God, and when we reached the zoo I did. Yet I had not exactly spent the journey in thought. Nor in great emotion. “Emotional” is perhaps the last word we can apply to some of the most important events. It was more like when a man, after a long sleep, still lying motionless in bed, becomes aware that he is now awake.

Walking and talking are two very great pleasures, but it is a mistake to combine them. Our own noise blots out the sounds and silences of the outdoor world; and talking leads almost inevitably to smoking, and then farewell to nature as far as one of our senses is concerned. The only friend to walk with is one who so exactly shares your taste for each mood of the countryside that a glance, a halt, or at most a nudge, is enough to assure us that the pleasure is shared.

The assumption that things which have been conjured in the past will always be conjured in the guiding principle not of rational but of animal behavior.

Of course language is not an infallible guide, but it contains, with all its defects, a good deal of stored insight and experience.