They never fell into the habit of the idle revolutionists of supposing that the past was bad because the future was good, which amounted to asserting that because humanity had never made anything but mistakes it was now quite certain to be right.

Now, as a fact, these catchwords themselves often are paradoxes. These catchwords themselves are often intrinsically contradictory or improbable. So that, by the simple operation of stating the dull and obvious truth, one may gain quite a picturesque reputation for dashing and dazzling paradox.

Men deride omens, though often they are but the mind’s logic waging a war upon our optimism.

We talk much about “respecting” this or that person’s religion; but the way to respect a religion is to treat it as a religion: to ask what are its tenets and what are their consequences.

What is vitally needed everywhere, in art as much as in ethics, in poetry as much as in politics, is choice; a creative power in the will as well as in the mind. Without that self–limitation of somebody, nothing living will ever see the light.

But when this saner view of history is realised, there does remain something more mystical and difficult to define. Even heathen things are Christian when they have been preserved by Christianity.

What we assume in action is not that the natural order is unalterable, but simply that it is much safer to bet on uncommon incidents than on common ones.

Even public apathy is a kind of public opinion—and in many cases a very sensible kind. If I ask every body to vote about Mineral Meals and do not get a single ballot-paper returned, I may say that the citizens have not voted. But they have.

The man was proud of being orthodox, was proud of being right. If he stood alone in a howling wilderness he was more than a man; he was a church.