The grinding power of the plain words of the Gospel story is like the power of mill-stones, and those who can read them simply enough will feel as if rocks had been rolled upon them.

And my haunting instinct that somehow good was not merely a tool to be used, but a relic to be guarded, like the goods from Crusoe's ship--even that had been the wild whisper of something originally wise, for, according to Christianity, we were indeed the survivors of a wreck, the crew of a golden ship that had gone down before the beginning of the world.

It's not the world that's got so much worse but the news coverage that's got so much better.

somehow one must love the world without being worldly.

There are two ways to get enough. One is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less.

One pleasure attached to growing older is that many things seem to be growing younger; growing fresher and more lively than we once supposed them to be.

The modern materialists are not permitted to doubt; they are forbidden to believe.