William Ralph Inge Quotes (1860-1954)

“The European talks of progress because by the aid of a few scientific discoveries he has established a society which has mistaken comfort for civilization.”

“A nation is a society united by a delusion about its ancestry and by a common hatred of its neighbours.”

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

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

“There are two kinds of fool. One says, "This is old, and therefore good." And one says, "This is new, and therefore better."”

“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."”

“So the pendulum swings, now violently, now slowly; and every institution not only carries within it the seeds of its own dissolution, but prepares the way for its most hated rival.”

“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 attempt to prove Eckhart a mere scholastic is a failure; the audacities of his German discourses cannot be explained as an accommodation to the tastes of a peculiar audience. For good or evil Eckhart is an original and independent thinker, whose theology is confined by no trammels of authority.”

“Mandeville's essay [The Fable of the Bees] was a clever and cynical defence of licence and selfishness.”

“Ruskin's own artistic life would have been impossible without the paternal sherry and the rich men who drank it.”

“Of the philosophers, Thales is vaguely reported to have taught that souls are immortal. But neither he nor his immediate successors... believed in the immortality of particular souls... This doctrine belongs to the Orphic tradition. In Heracleitus and Parmenides we find the two doctrines of immortality... implicit in mysticism, separated... for the first time. Heracleitus is the champion of the Dionysiac... life and death... in an unending cycle; Parmenides, under Orphic influence, teaches... Soul has fallen from... light and reality to the dark and unreal... bodily existence. This, however, is... only 'the way of opinion'... [Parmenides] feels.... that... substantiality... is not so easily got rid of. But he will not give up... eternal substance. The most interesting fragment of Parmenides... seems to enunciate, for the first time in Greek thought, the mystical doctrine of eternity as a timeless Now, as opposed to the popular... unending succession. ''''There remains then only to give an account of one way—that real Being exists. Many signs... showing... it is unborn, indestructible, entire, unique, unshakable, and unending. It never was, and it never will be, since it is all together present in the Now, one and indivisible.'''' Empedocles... repudiates... Parmenides, probably on the ground that he reduces the world of time and change to nullity... thus leaves no pathway from appearance to reality. His doctrine of the soul’s exile and wanderings is... Orphic doctrine, which Pindar also gives... in the second Olympian Ode. The Soul sins by separating itself from God... from love and a choice of ' strife ’ in the place of harmony. The immortal Soul is... love and strife blended; the body... only an 'alien garment'... perishes at death. ...Empedocles describes the Soul as a ratio, or harmony ...the complex of...'strife'... bound... by the principle of unity...'love'...Parmenides ...may be ...rejects the Pytdhagorean doctrines ...finds truth in static materialism.”