There was nothing medieval people liked better, or did better, than sorting out and tidying up. Of all our modern inventions I suspect that they would most have admired the card index.

The rule of the universe is that others can do for us what we cannot do for ourselves, and one can paddle every canoe except one's own.

We regard God as an airman regards his parachute; it's there for emergencies but he hopes he'll never have to use it.

If Christianity was something we were making up, of course we could make it easier. But it is not.

While we are actually subjected to them, the 'moods' and 'spirits' of nature point no morals. Overwhelming gaiety, insupportable grandeur, sombre desolation are flung at you. Make what you can of them, if you must make at all. The only imperative that nature utters is, 'Look. Listen. Attend.

The next best thing to being wise oneself is to live in a circle of those who are.

The Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs. If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time. God became Man for no other purpose.