No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good...Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is.

The human mind is generally far more eager to praise and dispraise than to describe and define. It wants to make every distinction a distinction of value; hence those fatal critics who can never point out the differing quality of two poets without putting them in an order of preference as if they were candidates for a prize.

Enough had been thought, and said, and felt, and imagined. It was about time that something should be done.

Children have one kind of silliness, as you know, and grown-ups have another kind.

Why must holy places be dark places?

You can’t go on “seeing through” things forever. The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it. To “see through” all things is the same as not to see.

I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.