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.

To do Mohammed justice, his main attack was against the idolatries of Asia. Only he thought, just as the Arians did and just as the Unitarians do, that he could attack them better with a greater approximation to plain theism. What distinguishes his heresy from anything like an Arian or Albigensian heresy is that, as it sprang up on the borders of Christendom, it could spread outwards to a barbaric world.

I do not feel any contempt for an atheist, who is often a man limited and constrained by his own logic to a very sad simplification.

A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.

The great saint may be said to mix all his thoughts with thanks. All goods look better when they look like gifts.

I am not absentminded. It is the presence of mind that makes me unaware of everything else.

The unconscious democracy of America is a very fine thing. It is a true and deep and instinctive assumption of the equality of citizens, which even voting and elections have not destroyed.