“In a word, we may reasonably hope for the virtual abolition of education when I'm as good as you has fully had its way. All incentives to learn and all penalties for not learning will vanish.The few who might want to learn will be prevented; who are they to overtop their fellows? And anyway the teachers--or should I say, nurses?--will be far too busy reassuring the dunces and patting them on the back to waste any time on real teaching. We shall no longer have to plan and toil to spread imperturable conceit and incurable ignorance among men. The little vermin themselves will do it for us.”

“There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.”

“The death of a beloved is an amputation.”

“We don't have a soul. We are a soul. We happen to have a body.”

“That world is ended, as if it had never been. Let the race of Adam and Eve take warning.”

“Excess of love, did ye say? There was no excess, there was defect. She loved her son too little, not too much. If she had loved him more there'd be no difficulty.”

“People shouldn't call for demons unless they really mean what they say.”

“Each day we are becoming a creature of splendid glory or one of unthinkable horror.”

“If you live for the next world, you get this one in the deal; but if you live only for this world, you lose them both.”

“But do you really mean, Sir," said Peter, "that there could be other worlds-all over the place, just round the corner-like that?" "Nothing is more probable," said the Profesor, taking off his spectacles and beginning to polish them, while he muttered to himself, "I wonder what they do teach them at these schools.”

“But length of days with an evil heart is only length of misery and already she begins to know it. All get what they want; they do not always like it.”

“I do not think there is a demonstrative proof (like Euclid) of Christianity, nor of the existence of matter, nor of the good will and honesty of my best and oldest friends. I think all three are (except perhaps the second) far more probable than the alternatives. The case for Christianity in general is well given by Chesterton…As to why God doesn't make it demonstratively clear; are we sure that He is even interested in the kind of Theism which would be a compelled logical assent to a conclusive argument? Are we interested in it in personal matters? I demand from my friend trust in my good faith which is certain without demonstrative proof. It wouldn't be confidence at all if he waited for rigorous proof. Hang it all, the very fairy-tales embody the truth. Othello believed in Desdemona's innocence when it was proved: but that was too late. Lear believed in Cordelia's love when it was proved: but that was too late. 'His praise is lost who stays till all commend.' The magnanimity, the generosity which will trust on a reasonable probability, is required of us. But supposing one believed and was wrong after all? Why, then you would have paid the universe a compliment it doesn't deserve. Your error would even so be more interesting and important than the reality. And yet how could that be? How could an idiotic universe have produced creatures whose mere dreams are so much stronger, better, subtler than itself?”

“The value of myth is that it takes all the things you know and restores to them the rich significance which has been hidden by the veil of familiarity.”

“...My idea of God is a not divine idea. It has to be shattered from time to time. He shatters it Himself. He is the great iconoclast. Could we not almost say that this shattering is one of the marks of His presence?..”

“The world does not need more Christian literature. What it needs is more Christians writing good literature.”