Dean William R. Inge Quotes

Public opinion a vulgar impertinent anonymous tyrant who deliberately makes life unpleasant for anyone who is not content to be the average man.

It is said that Mr. Gladstone could persuade most people of most things and himself of anything.

The nations which have put mankind and posterity most in their debt have been small states - Israel Athens Florence Elizabethan England.

What is originality? Undetected plagiarism.

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

A good government remains the greatest of human blessings and no nation has ever enjoyed it.

Literature flourishes best when it is half a trade and half an art.

Public opinion: a vulgar impertinent anonymous tyrant who deliberately makes life unpleasant for any one of us who is not content to be the average man.

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 whole of nature is a conjugation of the verb to eat in the active and passive.

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

Anxiety is the interest paid on trouble before it is due.

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

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

Many people believe they are attracted by God or by Nature when they are only repelled by Man.

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

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 proper time to influence the character of a child is about 100 years before he is born.