William Ralph Inge quotes - page 3

William Ralph Inge was an English author, Anglican priest, and professor of divinity, often known as "The Gloomy Dean." His writings explored religion, philosophy, and society, gaining attention for their intellectual depth and sometimes pessimistic outlook. He significantly influenced discussions on spirituality and social issues in early 20th-century Britain. Here are 70 of his quotes:

In dealing with Englishmen you can be sure of one thing only, that the logical solution will not be adopted.

William Ralph Inge

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.

William Ralph Inge

God does not always punish a nation by sending it adversity. More often He gives the oppressors their hearts' desire, and sends leanness withal into their soul.

William Ralph Inge

Many people believe that they are attracted by God, or by Nature, when they are only repelled by man.

William Ralph Inge

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.

William Ralph Inge

All faith consists essentially in the recognition of a world of spiritual values behind, yet not apart from, the world of natural phenomena.

William Ralph Inge

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

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.

William Ralph Inge

In praising science, it does not follow that we must adopt the very poor philosophies which scientific men have constructed. In philosophy they have much more to learn than to teach.

William Ralph Inge

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.

William Ralph Inge

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.

William Ralph Inge

Let none of us delude himself by supposing that honesty is always the best policy. It is not.

William Ralph Inge

Admiration for ourselves and our institutions is too often measured by our contempt and dislike for foreigners.

William Ralph Inge

Gambling is a disease of barbarians superficially civilized.

William Ralph Inge

Man, as we know him, is a poor creature; he is halfway between an ape and a god and he is travelling in the right direction.

William Ralph Inge

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

William Ralph Inge

The phase of thought or feeling which we call Mysticism has its origin in that which is the raw material of all religion, and perhaps of all philosophy and art as well, namely, that dim consciousness of the beyond, which is part of our nature as human beings. Men have given different names to these "obstinate questionings of sense and outward things." We may call them, if we will, a sort of higher instinct, perhaps an anticipation of the evolutionary process; or an extension of the frontier of consciousness; or, in religious language, the voice of God speaking to us. Mysticism arises when we try to bring this higher consciousness into relation with the other contents of our minds.

William Ralph Inge

Looking back, I think I can separate the years when I was happy and those when I was unhappy. But perhaps at the time I should have judged differently.

William Ralph Inge