As for the general view that the Church was discredited by the War—they might as well say that the Ark was discredited by the Flood. When the world goes wrong, it proves rather that the Church is right. The Church is justified, not because her children do not sin, but because they do.

All good writers express the state of their souls, even (as occurs in some cases of very good writers) if it is a state of damnation.

It is a mathematical fact that if a line be not perfectly directed towards a point, it will actually go further away from it as it comes nearer to it.

If the world becomes pagan and perishes, the last man left alive would do well to quote the Iliad and die.

It is shorter to state the things forbidden than the things permitted; precisely because most things are permitted and only a few things forbidden.

If I had only one sermon to preach it would be a sermon against pride.

What is education? Properly speaking, there is no such thing as education. Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another. Whatever the soul is like, it will have to be passed on somehow, consciously or unconsciously, and that transition may be called education. ... What we need is to have a culture before we hand it down. In other words, it is a truth, however sad and strange, that we cannot give what we have not got, and cannot teach to other people what we do not know ourselves.