Dr. William Ralph Inge

Benedict Nightingale speaking of Dean Inge William Inge handles symbolism rather like an Olympic weight lifter, raising it with agonizing care, brandishing it with a tiny grunt of triumph, then dropping it with a terrible clang.

It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favor of vegetarianism while the wolf remains of a different opinion.

It is astonishing with how little wisdom mankind can be governed, when that little wisdom is its own.

Events in the past may be roughly divided into those which probably never happened and those which do not matter.

A nation is a society united by delusions about its ancestry and by common hatred of its neighbors.

Worry is interest paid on trouble before it falls due.

Of all tyrannies a country can suffer, the worst is the tyranny of the majority.

What is a socialist One who has yearnings To share equal profits from unequal earnings.

Religion is a way of walking, not a way of talking.

A man may build himself a throne of bayonets, but he cannot sit on it.

There are two kinds of fools one says, 'This is old, therefore it is good' the other says, 'This is new, therefore it is better.'

The nations which have put mankind and posterity most in their debt have been small statesIsrael, Athens, Florence, Elizabethan England.

Prayer gives a man the opportunity of getting to know a gentleman he hardly ever meets. I do not mean his maker, but himself.

The happiest people seem to be those who have no particular reason for being happy except that they are so.

The enemies of Freedom do not argue they shout and they shoot.

It takes in reality only one to make a quarrel. It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favour of vegetarianism, while the wolf remains of a different opinion.

We have enslaved the rest of the animal creation, and have treated our distant cousins in fur and feathers so badly that beyond doubt, if they were able to formulate a religion, they would depict the Devil in human form.

The proper time to influence the character of a child is about a hundred years before he is born.