Sublime

But I ask the reader to remember always that I am talking of words, not as they are used in talk or novels, but as they will be used, and have been used, in warrants and certificates, and Acts of Parliament. The distinction between the two is perfectly clear and practical. The difference is that a novelist or a talker can be trusted to try and hit

And the reason simply is that these philosophers, like so many modern philosophers, do not possess the patience to see what they are taking for granted.

In short, unless pilots are to be permitted to ram ships on to the rocks and then say that heaven is the only true harbour; unless judges are to be allowed to let murderers loose, and explain afterwards that the murder had done good on the whole; unless soldiers are to be allowed to lose battles and then point out that true glory is to be found in

In other words, we were offered at the same instant a promise of faith in the future and a proposal of perjury in the present.

Rulers and reformers are a race of rather pedantic porters, always carrying an unknown present to an unknown person, not unfrequently (I fancy) the wrong present to the wrong person.

He was the voice in England of this humane intoxication and expansion, this encouraging of anybody to be anything. His best books are a carnival of liberty,

It does not occur to us that the mere assertion that this raging and confounding universe is governed by justice and mercy is a piece of staggering optimism fit to set all men capering.

For religion all men are equal, as all pennies are equal, because the only value in any of them is that they bear the image of the King.