There is nothing indulgent about the Moral Law. It is as hard as nails. It tells you to do the straight thing and it does not seem to care how painful, or dangerous, or difficult it is to do.

Let there be wicked kings and beheadings, battles and dungeons, giants and dragons, and let the villans be soundly killed at the end of the book. I think it is possible that by confining your child to the blameless stories of life in which nothing at all alarming ever happens, you would fail to banish the terrors, and would succeed in banishing all that can ennoble them or make them endurable.

When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.

Every sin is the distortion of an energy breathed into us - an energy which, if not thus distorted, would have blossomed into one of those holy acts whereof 'God did it' and 'I did it' are both true descriptions.

Did I hate him, then? Indeed, I believe so. A love like that can grow to be nine-tenths hatred and still call itself love.

For me, reason is the natural organ of truth; but imagination is the organ of meaning. Imagination, producing new metaphors or revivifying old, is not the cause of truth, but its condition.

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.