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If The Universe Is Running Down Like A Clock, The Clock Must Have Been Wound Up At A Date Which We Could Name If We Knew It. The World, If It Is To Have An End In Time, Must Have Had A Beginning In Time.

-William Ralph Inge

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If The Universe Is

William Ralph Inge

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If The Universe Is Running Down Like A Clock, The Clock Must Have Been Wound Up At A Date Which We Could Name If We Knew It. The World, If It Is To Have An End In Time, Must Have Had A Beginning In Time.

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The Statistics Of Suicide Show That, For Non-combatants At Least, Life Is More Interesting In War Than In Peace.

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The Church That Is Married To The Spirit Of This Age, Becomes A Widow In The Next.

The Happy People Are Those Who Are Producing Something.

Don't Break The Silence Unless You Can Improve On It.

Let Us Remember, When We Are Inclined To Be Disheartened, That The Private Soldier Is A Poor Judge Of The Fortunes Of A Great Battle.

Whoever Marries The Spirit Of This Age Will Find Himself A Widower In The Next.

Faith Is An Act Of Rational Choice, Which Determines Us To Act As If Certain Things Were True, And In The Confident Expectation That They Will Prove To Be True.

The World Belongs To Those Who Think And Act With It, Who Keep A Finger On Its Pulse.

Civilization Is A Disease Which Is Almost Invariably Fatal.

To Become A Popular Religion, It Is Only Necessary For A Superstition To Enslave A Philosophy.

Religion Is Caught, Not Taught.

The Great Discovery Of The Nineteenth Century, That We Are Of One Blood With The Lower Animals, Has Created New Ethical Obligations Which Have Not Yet Penetrated The Public Conscience. The Clerical Profession Has Been Lamentably Remiss In Preaching This Obvious Duty.

In Dealing With Englishmen You Can Be Sure Of One Thing Only, That The Logical Solution Will Not Be Adopted.

The Happy People Are Those Who Are Producing Something; The Bored People Are Those Who Are Consuming Much And Producing Nothing.

The Strongest Wish Of A Vast Number Of Earnest Men And Women To-day Is For A Basis Of Religious Belief Which Shall Rest, Not Upon Tradition Or External Authority Or Historical Evidence, But Upon The Ascertainable Facts Of Human Experience. The Craving For Immediacy, Which We Have Seen To Be Characteristic Of All Mysticism, Now Takes The Form Of A Desire To Establish The Validity Of The God-consciousness As A Normal Part Of The Healthy Inner Life.

Hatred Toward Any Human Being Cannot Exist In The Same Heart As Love To God.

The Effect Of Boredom On A Large Scale In History Is Underestimated. It Is A Main Cause Of Revolutions, And Would Soon Bring To An End All The Static Utopias And The Farmyard Civilization Of The Fabians.

The Modern World Belongs To The Half-educated, A Rather Difficult Class, Because They Do Not Realize How Little They Know.

Nature Takes Away Any Faculty That Is Not Used.

Don't Get Up From The Feast Of Life Without Paying For Your Share Of It.

The Devil Deserves Zero Tolerance.

We Must Cut Our Coat According To Our Cloth, And Adapt Ourselves To Changing Circumstances.

The Fruit Of The Tree Of Knowledge Always Drives Man From Some Paradise Or Other; And Even The Paradise Of Fools Is Not An Unpleasant Abode While It Is Habitable.

There Is No Law Of Progress. Our Future Is In Our Own Hands, To Make Or To Mar. It Will Be An Uphill Fight To The End, And Would We Have It Otherwise? Let No One Suppose That Evolution Will Ever Exempt Us From Struggles. 'you Forget,' Said The Devil, With A Chuckle, 'that I Have Been Evolving Too.

Man Will Never Be Entirely Willing To Give Up This World For The Next Nor The Next World For This.

For Better Or Worse, Man Is The Tool-using Animal, And As Such He Has Become The Lord Of Creation. When He Is Lord Also Of Himself, He Will Deserve His Self-chosen Title Homo Sapiens.

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Our Test Is Infallible. Whatever View Of Reality Deepens Our Sense Of The Tremendous Issues Of Life In The World Wherein We Move, Is For Us Nearer The Truth Than Any View Which Diminishes That Sense.

Action Is The Normal Completion Of The Act Of Will Which Begins As Prayer. That Action Is Not Always External, But It Is Always Some Kind Of Effective Energy.

A Cat Can Be Trusted To Purr When She Is Pleased, Which Is More Than Can Be Said For Human Beings.

Bereavement Is The Deepest Initiation Into The Mysteries Of Human Life, An Initiation More Searching And Profound Than Even Happy Love.

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The Enemies Of Freedom Do Not Argue; They Shout And They Shoot.

The Soul Is Dyed By The Color Of Its Leisure Hours.

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Originality, I Fear, Is Too Often Only Undetected And Frequently Unconscious Plagiarism.

Beautiful Thoughts Hardly Bring Us To God Until They Are Acted Upon. No One Can Have A True Idea Of Right Until He Does It.

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Let None Of Us Delude Himself By Supposing That Honesty Is Always The Best Policy. It Is Not.

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They Who Will Live For Others Shall Have Great Troubles, But They Shall Seem To Them Small. Those Who Will Live For Themselves Shall Have Small Troubles, But They Shall Seem To Them Great.

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True Faith Is Belief In The Reality Of Absolute Values.

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The Wise Man Is He Who Knows The Relative Value Of Things.

The Whole Of Creation, With All Of Its Laws, Is A Revelation Of God.

When Our First Parents Were Driven Out Of Paradise, Adam Is Believed To Have Remarked To Eve, "my Dear, We Live In An Age Of Transition."

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There Is No Limit To The Noble Aspirations Which The Words "my Country" May Evoke.

Faith Begins As An Experiment, And Ends As An Experience.

The Game Of Life Is Worth Playing, But The Struggle Is The Prize.

All Human Love Is A Holy Thing, The Holiest Thing In Our Experience.

Gambling Is A Disease Of Barbarians Superficially Civilized.

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The Vulgar Mind Always Mistakes The Exceptional For The Important.

In Imperialism Nothing Fails Like Success. If The Conqueror Oppresses His Subjects, They Will Become Fanatical Patriots, And Sooner Or Later Have Their Revenge; If He Treats Them Well, And Governs Them For Their Good, They Will Multiply Faster Than Their Rulers, Till They Claim Their Independence.

The Jealous Man Is So Preoccupied With What He Hasn't Got That He Fails To Appreciate The Value Of What He Has Got. He Loses The Ability To Feel Glad Because The Sun Is Shining. He Doesn't See The Wonder And The Newness Of The Beginning Of Spring.

To Marry Is To Get A Binocular View Of Life.

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I Have Never Understood Why It Should Be Considered Derogatory To The Creator To Suppose That He Has A Sense Of Humour.

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The Happiest People Seem To Be Those Who Have No Particular Cause For Being Happy Except That They Are So.

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Worry Is Interest Paid On Trouble Before It Comes Due.

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Consciousness Is A Phase Of Mental Life Which Arises In Connection With The Formation Of New Habits. When Habit Is Formed, Consciousness Only Interferes To Spoil Our Performance.

Originality Is Undetected Plagiarism.

It Is Useless For The Sheep To Pass Resolutions In Favor Of Vegetarianism, While The Wolf Remains Of A Different Opinion.

A Monarch Frequently Represents His Subjects Better That An Elected Assembly; And If He Is A Good Judge Of Character He Is Likely To Have More Capable And Loyal Advisers.

The Church Is Only A Secular Institution In Which The Half-educated Speak To The Half-converted.

Experience Is A Good Teacher, But Her Fees Are Very High.

Literature Flourishes Best When It Is Half A Trade And Half An Art.

Love Remembered And Consecrated By Grief Belongs, More Clearly Than The Happy Intercourse Of Friends, To The Eternal World; It Has Proved Itself Stronger Than Death.

A Nation Is A Society United By A Delusion About Its Ancestry And By Common Hatred Of Its Neighbours.

My Dear, We Live In An Age Of Transition.

I Think Middle-age Is The Best Time, If We Can Escape The Fatty Degeneration Of The Conscience Which Often Sets In At About Fifty.

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