Goodness is, so to speak, itself; badness is only spoiled goodness. And there must be something good first before it can be spoiled.

We may not be able to get certainty, but we can get probability, and half a loaf is better than no bread.

Could one start a Stagnation Party-which at General Elections would boast that during its term of office no event of the least importance had taken place?

The most valuable thing the Psalms do for me is to express the same delight in God which made David dance.

Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery's shadow or reflection: the fact that you don't merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer. I not only live each endless day in grief, but live each day thinking about living each day in grief.

Here. All of you. And you, doorkeeper. No one is to be let out of the house today. And anyone I catch talking about this young lady will be first beaten to death and then burned alive and after that be kept on bread and water for six weeks. There.

And now, what does it all matter? It matters more than anything else in the world. The whole dance, or drama, or pattern of this three-Personal life is to be played out in each one of us: or (putting it the other way round) each one of us has got to enter that pattern, take his place in that dance. There is no other way to the happiness for which we were made.