Writers’ Quotes

Quotes of all types by writers.

Success is simple. Do what’s right, the right way, at the right time. — Arnold H. Glasow

Good judgement comes from experience; experience comes from bad judgement. — Rita Mae Brown

It is human nature to think wisely and act in an absurd fashion. — Anatole France

We sleep safely in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence upon those who would do us harm. — George Orwell

This is the precept by which I have lived: Prepare for the worst; expect the best; and take what comes. — Hannah Arendt

The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis. — Dante Alighieri

To be a poet is a condition, not a profession. — Robert Frost

Asking an artist to talk about his work is like asking a plant to discuss horticulture. — Jean Cocteau

Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes. — Oscar Wilde

Some people say that I must be a terrible person, but it’s not true. I have the heart of a young boy…in a jar on my desk. — Stephen King

Democracy is a device that insures we shall be governed no better than we deserve. — George Bernard Shaw

Writing, is not necessarily something to be ashamed of—but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards. — Robert A. Heinlein

Driving a Porsche in London is like bringing a Ming vase to a football game. — Douglas Adams

Writing is easy. You only need to stare at a piece of blank paper until your forehead bleeds. — Douglas Adams

The first of April is the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year. — Mark Twain

Students will not be prepared for work in an economy that demands higher-order skills if their schools focus exclusively on the basics. Students will not learn to think for themselves if their schools expect them just to stay in line and keep quiet. — Nick Rabkin and Robin Redmond, The Washington Post

This Universe never did make sense; I suspect that it was built on government contract. — Robert A. Heinlein, The Number of the Beast

On the other hand, if you’re just starting out as a writer, you could do worse than strip your television’s electric plug-wire, wrap a spike around it, and then stick it back into the wall. See what blows, and how far. Just an idea. — Stephen King

‘Who Let the Dogs Out’ is better than all the songs Ms. [Celine] Dion has recorded, put together. — Stephen King

Hell is other people. — Jean-Paul Sartre

Build a man a fire, and he’ll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he’ll be warm for the rest of his life. — Terry Pratchett

You will find as you look back upon your life that the moments when you have truly lived are the moments when you have done things in the spirit of love. — Henry Drummond

Self-reliance is the only road to true freedom, and being one’s own person is its ultimate reward. — Patricia Sampson

The best way to predict the future is to create it. — Peter Drucker

Don’t bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself. — William Faulkner

Nobody succeeds beyond his or her wildest expectations unless he or she begins with some wild expectations. — Ralph Charell

To cultivate kindness is a valuable part of the business of life. — Samuel Johnson

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze new problems, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. — Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love

Society often forgives the criminal; it never forgives the dreamer. — Oscar Wilde

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts. — Bertrand Russell

We all sit around in a circle and suppose, while the secret sits in the center and knows. — Robert Frost

To love and win is the best thing. To love and lose, the next best. — William M. Thackeray

Destiny is no matter of chance. It is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved. — William Jennings Bryan

Absence is to love what wind is to fire; it extinguishes the small, it enkindles the great. — Comte DeBussy-Rabutin

The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense. — Tom Clancy

I have never let my schooling interfere with my education. — Mark Twain

The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good. — Samuel Johnson

All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusion is called a philosopher. — Ambrose Pierce

The power of accurate observation is frequently called cynicism by those who don’t have it. — George Bernard Shaw

The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work. — Emile Zola

Too much democracy leads to tyranny. . . . Tyranny of the majority need not be institutionalized by law. Public opinion, when regarded too highly, also exercises tyranny. — Alexis de Tocqueville

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury. — Sir Alexander Fraser Tytler

People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid. — Soren Aabye Kierkegaard

A monarch’s neck should always have a noose around it. It keeps him upright. — Robert A. Heinlein

I hate it when reality steals my plots. — Scott Bradford

The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws . . . [that] disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. — Cesare Beccaria, “On Crimes and Punishments”, 1764

If you want to build a ship, then don’t drum up men to gather wood, give orders, and divide the work. Rather, teach them to yearn for the far and the endless sea. — Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Always do right; this will gratify some people and astonish the rest. — Mark Twain

When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him. — Jonathan Swift, Thoughts on Various Subjects, Moral and Diverting

Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so. — Douglas Adams

Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions. — G. K. Chesterton

The most dangerous man, to any government, is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost invariably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane[,] and intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. And if he is not romantic personally, he is apt to spread discontent among those who are. — Henry Louis Mencken

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. — Evelyn Beatrice Hall, The Friends of Voltaire

It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them. — Mark Twain

Where the people fear the government you have tyranny. Where the government fears the people you have liberty. — John Basil Barnhill, Indictment of Socialism No. 3

I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by. — Douglas Adams

Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it. — Mark Twain

The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable. — John Kenneth Galbraith

…the [Catholic Church] has not merely told this truth or that truth, but has revealed itself as a truth-telling thing. All other philosophies say the things that plainly seem to be true; only this philosophy has again and again said the thing that does not seem to be true, but is true. — G. K. Chesterton

Civilization is an enormous improvement on the lack thereof. — P. J. O’Rourke

Earnestness is just stupidity sent to college. — P. J. O’Rourke

I like to do my principal research in bars, where people are more likely to tell the truth or, at least, lie less convincingly than they do in briefings and books. — P. J. O’Rourke

To grasp the true meaning of socialism, imagine a world where everything is designed by the post office, even the sleaze. — P. J. O’Rourke

The whole idea of our government is this: If enough people get together and act in concert, they can take something and not pay for it. — P. J. O’Rourke

You can’t get good Chinese takeout in China and Cuban cigars are rationed in Cuba. That’s all you need to know about communism. — P. J. O’Rourke

Your money does not cause my poverty. Refusal to believe this is at the bottom of most bad economic thinking. — P. J. O’Rourke

You may tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. — “Yes, Virginia…” Editorial, The New York Sun, 1897

Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil, in its worst state an intolerable one…. — Thomas Paine, Common Sense

Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe. — Edmund Burke

Freedom and not servitude is the cure of anarchy; as religion, and not atheism, is the true remedy for superstition. — Edmund Burke

The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedients, and by parts. — Edmund Burke

Religious persecution may shield itself under the guise of a mistaken and over-zealous piety. — Edmund Burke

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results. — Rita Mae Brown

Normal is the average of deviance. — Rita Mae Brown

Men despise religion; they hate it and fear it is true. To remedy this, we must begin by showing that religion is not contrary to reason; that it is venerable, to inspire respect for it; then we must make it lovable, to make good men hope it is true; finally, we must prove it is true. — Blaise Pascal

We should bear in mind that, in general, it is the object of our newspapers rather to create a sensation—to make a point—than to further the cause of truth. The latter end is only pursued when it seems coincident with the former. — Edgar Allan Poe, The Mystery of Marie Roget

Modern liberty means that nobody is allowed to discuss [religion]. Good taste, the last and vilest of human superstitions, has succeeded in silencing us where all the rest have failed. — G. K. Chesterton, Heretics

There was far more courage to the square mile in the Middle Ages, when no king had a standing army, but every man had a bow or sword. — G. K. Chesterton, Heretics

Now, the psychological discovery is merely this, that whereas it had been supposed that the fullest possible enjoyment is to be found by extending our ego to infinity, the truth is that the fullest possible enjoyment is to be found by reducing our ego to zero. — G. K. Chesterton, Heretics

Carlyle said that men were mostly fools. Christianity, with a surer and more reverent realism, says that they are all fools. This doctrine is sometimes called the doctrine of original sin. It may also be described as the doctrine of the equality of men. — G. K. Chesterton, Heretics

But if there really be anything of the nature of progress, it must mean, above all things, the careful study and assumption of the whole of the past. — G. K. Chesterton, Heretics

But if we do revive and pursue the pagan ideal of a simple and rational self-completion we shall end where Paganism ended. I do not mean that we shall end in destruction. I mean that we shall end in Christianity. — G. K. Chesterton, Heretics

With us the governing class is always saying to itself, ‘What laws shall we make?’ In a purely democratic state it would be always saying, ‘What laws can we obey?’ — G. K. Chesterton, Heretics

Being full of that kindliness which should come at the end of everything, even of a book, I apologize to the rationalists even for calling them rationalists. There are no rationalists. We all believe fairy-tales, and live in them. — G. K. Chesterton, Heretics

Salvation, while personal, is not private. To be incorporated into Christ is to be incorporated into his Church. You cannot sunder the two: it is not two in any case. It is one thing. — Thomas Howard, On Being Catholic

It is not just an accident that in our age inflation has become the accepted method of monetary management. Inflation is the fiscal complement of statism and arbitrary government. It is a cog in the complex of policies and institutions which gradually lead toward totalitarianism. — Ludwig von Mises, The Theory of Money and Credit

If God exists, then He must be outside the natural world, and therefore the tools of science are not the right ones to learn about Him. Instead…the evidence of God’s existence would have to come from other directions, and the ultimate decision would be based on faith, not proof. — Francis S. Collins, The Language of God

The church is made up of fallen people. The pure, clean water of spiritual truth is placed in rusty containers, and the subsequent failings of the church down through the centuries should not be projected onto the faith itself, as if the water had been the problem. — Francis S. Collins, The Language of God

Everywhere I go I’m asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don’t stifle enough of them. — Flannery O’Connor

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. — George Santayana

For the law holds, that it is better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer. — William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England

Reason itself is a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all. — G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

By a continuing process of inflation, government can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. — John Maynard Keynes

Art is not freedom from discipline, but a disciplined freedom. — Father Edward Catich

When circumstances change, I change my opinion. — John Maynard Keynes

I am an American by choice and conviction. I was born in Europe, but I came to America because this was the country based on my moral premises and the only country where one could be fully free to write. — Ayn Rand

My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute. — Ayn Rand

Few people deny the existence of heaven (though, oddly, some do), but there are many who deny the existence of hell. And their motivation for doing so is understandable, if not correct. The only doctrine of the Church I wish weren’t true is the doctrine that hell exists. — Patrick Madrid

Interpretation of Scripture can never be a purely academic affair, and it cannot be relegated to the purely historical. Scripture is full of potential for the future, a potential that can only be opened up when someone ‘lives through’ and ‘suffers through’ the sacred text. — Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth

The prevailing view today is that everyone should live by the religion—or perhaps by the atheism—in which he happens to find himself already. This, it is said, is the path of salvation for him. Such a view presupposes a strange picture of God and a strange idea of man and of the right way for man to live. — Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth

In a word, the true morality of Christianity is love. And love does admittedly run counter to self-seeking—it is an exodus out of oneself, and yet this is precisely the way in which man comes to himself. — Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth

Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do. That’s true for companies, and it’s true for products. — Steve Jobs

Normally, thought precedes word; it seeks and formulates the word. But praying the Psalms and liturgical prayer in general is exactly the other way round: The word, the voice, goes ahead of us, and our mind must adapt to it. — Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth

…[The] ancient world did in fact experience the birth of Christianity as a liberation from the fear of demons that, in spite of skepticism and enlightenment, was all-pervasive at the time. The same thing also happens today wherever Christianity replaces old tribal religions, transforming and integrating their positive elements into itself. — Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth

I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. And so it is with you. We are in charge of our attitudes. — Chuck Swindoll

The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn. — Alvin Toffle

…whenever the legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any farther obedience and are left to the common refuge, which God hath provided for all men, against force and violence. — John Locke, Second Treatise on Government

It is perfectly evident to my mind that there exists a necessary, eternal, supreme, and intelligent being. This is no matter of faith, but of reason. — Voltaire

An atheist has to know a lot more than I know. An atheist is someone who knows there is no god. By some definitions atheism is very stupid. — Carl Sagan

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. — Carl Sagan

The fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. — Carl Sagan, Broca’s Brain

It is all a matter of time scale. An event that would be unthinkable in a hundred years may be inevitable in a hundred million. — Carl Sagan, Cosmos

With insufficient data it is easy to go wrong. — Carl Sagan, Cosmos

We began as wanderers, and we are wanderers still. We have lingered long enough on the shores of the cosmic ocean. We are ready at last to set sail for the stars. — Carl Sagan, Cosmos

If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe. — Carl Sagan, Cosmos

Other things being equal, it is better to be smart than to be stupid. — Carl Sagan, Cosmos

We wish to pursue the truth no matter where it leads. But to find the truth, we need imagination and skepticism both. We will not be afraid to speculate, but we will be careful to distinguish speculation from fact. The cosmos is full beyond measure of elegant truths; of exquisite interrelationships; of the awesome machinery of nature. — Carl Sagan, Cosmos

There are many hypotheses in science that are wrong. That’s perfectly alright; it’s the aperture to finding out what’s right. Science is a self-correcting process. To be accepted, new ideas must survive the most rigorous standards of evidence and scrutiny. — Carl Sagan, Cosmos

Exactly the same technology can be used for good and for evil. It is as if there were a God who said to us, ‘I set before you two ways: You can use your technology to destroy yourselves or to carry you to the planets and the stars. It’s up to you.’ — Carl Sagan, Cosmos

The vast distances that separate the stars are providential. Beings and worlds are quarantined from one another. The quarantine is lifted only for those with sufficient self-knowledge and judgement to have safely traveled from star to star. — Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot

Widespread intellectual and moral docility may be convenient for leaders in the short term, but it is suicidal for nations in the long term. One of the criteria for national leadership should therefore be a talent for understanding, encouraging, and making constructive use of vigorous criticism. — Carl Sagan, Billions and Billions

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. — Martin Rees

There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed. — Ernest Hemingway

I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite. — G.K. Chesterton

I cannot see how to refute the arguments for the subjectivity of ethical values, but I find myself incapable of believing that all that is wrong with wanton cruelty is that I don’t like it. — Bertrand Russell

He who thus considers things in their first growth and origin, whether a state or anything else, will obtain the clearest view of them. — Aristotle, Politics

It is absurd to hold that a man ought to be ashamed of being unable to defend himself with his limbs but not of being unable to defend himself with speech and reason, when the use of reason is more distinctive of a human being than the use of his limbs. — Aristotle, Rhetoric

How many a dispute could have been deflated into a single paragraph if the disputants had dared to define their terms. — Aristotle, Rhetoric

He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god. — Aristotle, Politics

Man, when perfected, is the best of animals, but when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all. — Aristotle, Politics

Even when laws have been written down, they ought not always to remain unaltered. — Aristotle, Politics

If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in the government to the utmost. — Aristotle, Politics

Both oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of their arms. — Aristotle, Politics

A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side. — Aristotle, Politics

The basis of a democratic state is liberty. — Aristotle, Politics

Law is order, and good law is good order. — Aristotle, Politics

Piety requires us to honor truth above our friends. — Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics

For the things we have to learn before we can do, we learn by doing. — Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics

In cases of this sort, let us say adultery, rightness and wrongness do not depend on committing it with the right woman at the right time and in the right manner, but the mere fact of committing such action at all is to do wrong. — Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics

Therefore only an utterly senseless person can fail to know that our characters are the result of our conduct. — Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics

The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal. — Laurence J. Peter

Those who understand freedom as the radically arbitrary license to do just what they want and to have their own way are living in a lie, for by his very nature man is part of a shared existence and his freedom is shared freedom. — Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth

Let us declare that God is dead, then we ourselves will be God…. At last we can do what we please. We get rid of God; there is no measuring rod above us; we ourselves are our only measure. The ‘vineyard’ belongs to us. What happens to man and the world next? We are already beginning to see it. — Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth

The cruel consequences of religiously motivated violence are only too evident to us all. Violence does not build up the kingdom of God, the kingdom of humanity. On the contrary, it is a favorite instrument of the Antichrist, however idealistic its religious motivation may be. It serves, not humanity, but inhumanity. — Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week

God grants to evil and to evildoers a large measure of freedom–too large, we might think. Even so, history does not slip through his fingers. — Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week

Unity does not come from the world: on the basis of the world’s own efforts, it is impossible. The world’s own efforts lead to disunion, as we can all see. Inasmuch as the world is operative in the Church, in Christianity, it leads to schisms. — Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week

If God does not exist, everything is permissible. — Fyodor Dostoevsky

There are three kinds of people in the world; those who have sought God and found Him and now serve Him, those who are seeking Him but have not yet found Him, and those who neither seek Him nor find Him. The first are reasonable and happy, the second reasonable and unhappy, and the third unreasonable and unhappy. — Blaise Pascal

Brilliant minds often reject Christianity because they don’t want it to be true, because it is no longer fashionable or because it commands obedience, repentance and humility. — Peter Kreeft and Ronald K. Tacelli, Handbook of Christian Apologetics

Americans’ deepest religion is often equality. The notion that Christ alone is God–superior, authoritative, supernatural–and that Christ’s teaching and person is far greater than Buddha’s, or Muhammad’s, or Moses’s, no matter how much great and good wisdom may be contained in those others, is scandalous. — Peter Kreeft and Ronald K. Tacelli, Handbook of Christian Apologetics

[The early Christians] willingly died for their ‘conspiracy.’ Nothing proves sincerity like martyrdom. — Peter Kreeft and Ronald K. Tacelli, Handbook of Christian Apologetics

The dispute between the modernist demythologizer and the traditional believer is neither a textual dispute nor a scientific dispute, but a philosophical and theological dispute. Modernists read their philosophy of naturalism into the text, not out of it. They read the miracles out of it, not because the text tells them to but because their philosophy tells them to. — Peter Kreeft and Ronald K. Tacelli, Handbook of Christian Apologetics

There is an implicit but astonishing arrogance in the idea that all the apostles, all the church fathers and all the millions of ordinary Christians were fundamentally mistaken about Christ for nineteen centuries, and only a few theologians, sitting at their desks, in a very different culture, nineteen centuries later, finally understood him. — Peter Kreeft and Ronald K. Tacelli, Handbook of Christian Apologetics

Modernists have undermined faith far more effectively than atheists. The wolves in sheep’s clothing have carried away many more sheep than the honest wolves. — Peter Kreeft and Ronald K. Tacelli, Handbook of Christian Apologetics

Once we stop believing that morality has a basis in objective reality, once we start believing that morality is nothing more than subjective feelings and wishes, once we reduce justice from a cosmic law to a private preference, we no longer see it as binding or fear to disobey it when it is inconvenient. — Peter Kreeft and Ronald K. Tacelli, Handbook of Christian Apologetics

Judging God by human political categories is like judging a great symphony on which stanza of ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ it most resembles. — Peter Kreeft and Ronald K. Tacelli, Handbook of Christian Apologetics

The rhetoric about ‘progressive’ and ‘regressive’ hardly deserves comment. Those who tell truth by the clock or the calendar are practicing chronological snobbery. — Peter Kreeft and Ronald K. Tacelli, Handbook of Christian Apologetics

The Inquisition confused sin with sinners and judged both. Liberals make the same mistake and judge neither. But if you don’t judge the sin, you don’t care about the sinner. If you don’t hate the cancer, you don’t love the patient. — Peter Kreeft and Ronald K. Tacelli, Handbook of Christian Apologetics

Indiscriminate inclusion or indiscriminate exclusion are equally unthinking. — Peter Kreeft and Ronald K. Tacelli, Handbook of Christian Apologetics

Of all the symptoms of decay in our decadent civilization, subjectivism is the most disastrous of all. A mistake can possibly be discovered and amended if and only if truth exists and can be known and is loved and searched for. — Peter Kreeft and Ronald K. Tacelli, Handbook of Christian Apologetics

Just as pragmatism is unpragmatic and empiricism is not empirical, rationalism is irrational. You can’t prove that truth is only what can be proved. — Peter Kreeft and Ronald K. Tacelli, Handbook of Christian Apologetics

If the burden of proof is always on the one who believes any idea, then that principle should also apply to the belief in the idea of skepticism. — Peter Kreeft and Ronald K. Tacelli, Handbook of Christian Apologetics

If all values are only subjective, so is the value of tolerance. — Peter Kreeft and Ronald K. Tacelli, Handbook of Christian Apologetics

If no set of moral ideas were truer or better than any other, there would be no sense in preferring civilized morality to savage morality, or Christian morality to Nazi morality. In fact, of course, we all do believe that some moralities are better than others. — C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

All want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man. — C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

There is nothing progressive about being pig headed and refusing to admit a mistake. And I think if you look at the present state of the world, it is pretty plain that humanity has been making some big mistake. — C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

There is nothing indulgent about the Moral Law. It is as hard as nails. It tells you to do the straight thing and it does not seem to care how painful, or dangerous, or difficult it is to do. — C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning. Just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be a word without meaning. — C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Besides being complicated, reality, in my experience, is usually odd. It is not neat, not obvious, not what you expect. — C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

You can do a kind action when you are not feeling kind and when it gives you no pleasure, simply because kindness is right; but no one ever did a cruel action simply because cruelty is wrong–only because cruelty was pleasant or useful to him. — C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Every historical statement in the world is believed on authority. None of us has seen the Norman Conquest or the defeat of the Armada. None of us could prove them by pure logic as you prove a thing in mathematics…. A man who jibbed at authority in other things as some people do in religion would have to be content to know nothing all his life. — C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

It is, of course, quite true that God will not love you any the less, or have less use for you, if you happen to have been born with a very second-rate brain. He has room for people with very little sense, but He wants every one to use what sense they have. — C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Really great moral teachers never do introduce new moralities: it is quacks and cranks who do that. As Dr. [Samuel] Johnson said, ‘People need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed.’ — C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

When a man is getting better he understands more and more clearly the evil that is still left in him. When a man is getting worse he understands his own badness less and less. A moderately bad man knows he is not very good; a thoroughly bad man thinks he is all right. — C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance. — C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

If Christianity was something we were making up, of course we could make it easier. But it is not…. We are dealing with fact. Of course anyone can be simple if he has no facts to bother about. — C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

The more you obey your conscience, the more your conscience will demand of you. — C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

A generation ago [the Democratic Party] stood for progressive change. Now they defend every federal program as if each were sacred. They have become the most conservative force in American politics. — Thomas Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum, That Used To Be Us

In general, if you were to design a country ideally suited to flourish in the world we are living in, it would look more like the United States than any other. — Thomas Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum, That Used To Be Us

An atheist is someone who is certain that God does not exist, someone who has compelling evidence against the existence of God. I know of no such compelling evidence. — Carl Sagan

Because God can be relegated to remote times and places and to ultimate causes, we would have to know a great deal more about the universe than we do now to be sure that no such God exists. — Carl Sagan

The simple fact is that God certainly intended to create a human being and that this nascent human being has been deliberately deprived of his life. And that is nothing but murder. — Reverend Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ethics

The totalitarian states can do great things, but there is one thing they cannot do: they cannot give the factory-worker a rifle and tell him to take it home and keep it in his bedroom. That rifle hanging on the wall of the working class flat or laborer’s cottage is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there. — George Orwell

Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power; religion gives man wisdom which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals. They are complementary. — Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., Strength to Love

Every one, though born of God in an instant, yet undoubtedly grows by slow degrees. — Reverend John Wesley

Beware you be not swallowed up in books! An ounce of love is worth a pound of knowledge. — Reverend John Wesley

When I was young I was sure of everything. In a few years, having been mistaken a thousand times, I was not half so sure of most things as I was before. At present, I am hardly sure of anything but what God has revealed to man. — Reverend John Wesley

The greater the share the people have in government, the less liberty, civil or religious, does a nation enjoy. — Reverend John Wesley

Beware you are not a fiery, persecuting enthusiast. Do not imagine that God has called you (just contrary to the spirit of Him you style your Master) to destroy men’s lives, and not to save them. Never dream of forcing men into the ways of God. Think yourself, and let think. — Reverend John Wesley, The Nature of Enthusiasm

Though we cannot think alike, may we not love alike? May we not be of one heart, though we are not of one opinion? Without all doubt, we may. Herein all the children of God may unite, notwithstanding these smaller differences. — Reverend John Wesley, Catholic Spirit

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind. — Albert Einstein

The man of science is a poor philosopher. — Albert Einstein

Every one who is seriously engaged in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that the laws of nature manifest the existence of a spirit vastly superior to that of men, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble. — Albert Einstein

There can never be any real opposition between religion and science; for the one is the complement of the other. — Max Planck

Religion and natural science are fighting a joint battle in an incessant, never-relaxing crusade against skepticism and against dogmatism, against disbelief and against superstition, and the rallying cry in this crusade has always been, and always will be: ‘On to God!’ — Max Planck

Science spotlights three dimensions of nature that point to God. The first is the fact that nature obeys laws. The second is the dimension of life, of intelligently organized and purpose-driven beings, which arose from matter. The third is the very existence of nature. — Antony Flew and Roy Abraham Varghese, There Is a God

My discovery of the Divine has been a pilgrimage of reason and not of faith. — Antony Flew and Roy Abraham Varghese, There Is a God

It is crazy to postulate a trillion (causally unconnected) universes to explain the features of one universe, when postulating one entity (God) will do the job. — Richard Swinburne

Union bosses talked about securing the ‘right to strike,’ but they didn’t mean the right to quit, which everybody already had. In practice, the ‘right to strike’ meant the right to forcibly prevent others from filling jobs that strikers had left. — Jim Powell, FDR’s Folly

People must be free to use their knowledge, and they must have incentives to do so. Market prices must be free because they are crucial signals indicating whether things are abundant or scarce, unwanted or wanted. The most important thing government officials can do is get out of the way. — Jim Powell, FDR’s Folly

It is the American example that deserves the most credit for the global spread of democratic politics and free-market economies. In this sense, too, the world of today is a world that we invented. — Thomas Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum, That Used to Be Us

Countries don’t compete directly with one another in economic terms. When Singapore or China gets richer, America does not become poorer. To the contrary, Asia’s surging economic growth has made Americans better off. — Thomas Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum, That Used to Be Us

Bill Gates has always told me if I had been born, you know, many thousands of years ago, I’d have been some animal’s lunch because I can’t run very fast, I can’t climb trees, and some animal would be chasing me and I would say, Well, I allocate capital. The animal would say, Those are the kind that taste the best. — Warren Buffett

A 2011 report produced by Forrester Research estimated that the revenue generated through the sales of smartphone and tablet applications will reach $38 billion annually by 2015. Think about that: An industry that did not exist in 2006 will be generating $38 billion in revenues within a decade…. — Thomas Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum, That Used to Be Us

When children come to school knowing that their parents have high expectations, it makes everything a teacher is trying to do easier and more effective. Self-esteem is important, but it is not an entitlement. It has to be earned. — Thomas Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum, That Used to Be Us

American young people have got to understand from an early age that the world pays off on results, not on effort. Not everyone should win a prize no matter where he or she finishes. — Thomas Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum, That Used to Be Us

In sum, national, state, and local economic and fiscal policies over the last two decades added up to a bipartisan flight from prudence, common sense, and reality that has created an enormous challenge for the United States. — Thomas Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum, That Used to Be Us

It cannot be said often enough: Well-paying jobs don’t come from bailouts. They come from start-ups, which come from smart, creative, inspired risk takers. — Thomas Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum, That Used to Be Us

First, that human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way, and cannot really get rid of it. Secondly, that they do not in fact behave in that way. They know the Law of Nature; they break it. These two facts are the foundation of all clear thinking about ourselves and the universe we live in. — C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

If no set of moral ideas were truer or better than any other, there would be no sense in preferring civilized morality to savage morality, or Christian morality to Nazi morality. In fact, of course, we all do believe that some moralities are better than others. — C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

You make a thing voluntary and then half the people do not do it. That is not what you willed, but your will has made it possible. — C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

They tell you sex has become a mess because it was hushed up. But for the last twenty years it has not been. It has been chattered about all day long. Yet it is still in a mess. — C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Poster after poster, film after film, novel after novel, associate the idea of sexual indulgence with the ideas of health, normality, youth, frankness, and good humor…. This association is a lie. — C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Knowledge can last, principles can last, habits can last; but feelings come and go. — C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

But love, in the Christian sense, does not mean an emotion. It is a state not of the feelings but of the will; that state of the will which we have naturally about ourselves, and must learn to have about other people. — C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

How monotonously alike all the great tyrants and conquerors have been: how gloriously different are the saints. — C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Our bodies are essentially the same kind of thing as ape bodies. If we have no souls or if our souls are also essentially the same as ape souls, then there is no reason to expect anyone to act essentially different from apes. (This may explain much current social history!) What makes a difference is not where the body came from, but whether there is a soul, and where it came from. — Peter Kreeft and Ronald K. Tacelli, Handbook of Christian Apologetics

If you can’t translate it into words a fisherman would understand, you don’t understand it yourself. — Peter Kreeft and Ronald K. Tacelli, Handbook of Christian Apologetics

There is no more contradiction between Christianity’s hard-nosed doctrines and its softhearted love than there is between the hard objective truths of anatomy and the surgeon’s compassion for the patient. — Peter Kreeft and Ronald K. Tacelli, Handbook of Christian Apologetics

Objective does not mean “known by all” or “believed by all.” Even if everyone believes a lie, a lie is still a lie. — Peter Kreeft and Ronald K. Tacelli, Handbook of Christian Apologetics

I am a gun. I have challenged the waves and crossed a vast, unforgiving sea. I have landed on these shores. I am held by the pilgrim, the pioneer, and the trail blazer. I have brought civilization to a barren wilderness. — R.G. Yoho, I Am a Gun

For though you think that heaven is still shut up, remember that the Lord left the keys of it to Peter here, and through him to the Church, which keys everyone will carry with him, if he has been questioned and made confession. — Father Tertullian, Scorpiace (ca. AD 208)

There is one God, and one Christ, and one Church, and one chair founded by the voice of the Lord on the rock. Another altar cannot be set up, nor a new priesthood made, besides the one altar and the one priesthood. Whoever gathers elsewhere scatters. — Bishop Cyprian, Treatise 1 (ca. AD 250)

He who deserts the chair of Peter, upon whom the Church was founded, does he trust himself to be in the Church? — Bishop Cyprian, De Catholicae Ecclesiae Unitate (ca. AD 251)