105+ William Ralph Inge Quotes On Education, Spiritual And Reflection

William Ralph Inge was an English clergyman and author. He was Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral from 1911 to 1934, and was known as the "Gloomy Dean" due to his pessimistic outlook. Inge was a prolific writer, and wrote extensively on religion, philosophy, and literature. Following is our collection on famous quotes by William Ralph Inge on education, life, love.

Top 10 William Ralph Inge Quotes

1. Worry is interest paid on trouble before it comes due.
2. Theater is, of course, a reflection of life. Maybe we have to improve life before we can hope to improve theater.
3. A cat can be trusted to purr when she is pleased, which is more than can be said for human beings.
4. A nation is a society united by a delusion about its ancestry and by common hatred of its neighbours.
5. The happiest people seem to be those who have no particular cause for being happy except that they are so.
6. Originality is undetected plagiarism.
7. Originality, I fear, is too often only undetected and frequently unconscious plagiarism.
8. The wealth of a soul is measured by how much it can feel; its poverty by how little.
9. Events in the past may be roughly divided into those which probably never happened and those which do not matter.
10. Nobody is bored when he is trying to make something that is beautiful or to discover something that is true.

William Ralph Inge Short Quotes

• A man may build himself a throne of bayonets, but he cannot sit on it.
• Whoever marries the spirit of this age will find himself a widower in the next.
• Patriotism varies, from a noble devotion to a moral lunacy.
• The wisdom of the wise is an uncommon degree of common sense.
• The enemies of freedom do not argue; they shout and they shoot.
• No Christian can be a pessimist, for Christianity is a system of radical optimism.
• The world belongs to those who think and act with it, who keep a finger on its pulse.
• Let none of us delude himself by supposing that honesty is always the best policy. It is not.
• My dear, we live in an age of transition.
• Nature takes away any faculty that is not used.

William Ralph Inge Quotes About Education

The church is only a secular institution in which the half-educated speak to the half-converted. — William Ralph Inge

The aim of education is the knowledge not of facts but of values. — William Ralph Inge

The modern world belongs to the half-educated, a rather difficult class, because they do not realize how little they know. — William Ralph Inge

William Ralph Inge Quotes About Life

Public opinion, a vulgar, impertinent, anonymous tyrant who deliberately makes life unpleasant for anyone who is not content to the average person. — William Ralph Inge

Don't get up from the feast of life without paying for your share of it. — William Ralph Inge

Joy is the triumph of life; it is the sign that we are living our true life as spiritual beings. — William Ralph Inge

It is quite natural and inevitable that, if we spend sixteen hours daily of our waking lives in thinking about the affairs of the world and five minutes in thinking about God and our souls, this world will seem two hundred times more real to us than God. — William Ralph Inge

Our test is infallible. Whatever view of reality deepens our sense of the tremendous issues of life in the world wherein we move, is for us nearer the truth than any view which diminishes that sense. — William Ralph Inge

A man is never so truly and intensely himself as when he is most possessed by God. It is impossible to say where, in the spiritual life, the human will leaves off and divine grace begins. — William Ralph Inge

The statistics of suicide show that, for non-combatants at least, life is more interesting in war than in peace. — William Ralph Inge

The game of life is worth playing, but the struggle is the prize. — William Ralph Inge

To marry is to get a binocular view of life. — William Ralph Inge

William Ralph Inge Quotes About Love

Gambling is a disease of barbarians superficially civilized. — 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

Hatred toward any human being cannot exist in the same heart as love to God. — William Ralph Inge

All human love is a holy thing, the holiest thing in our experience. — William Ralph Inge

William Ralph Inge Quotes About People

The happy people are those who are producing something; the bored people are those who are consuming much and producing nothing. — 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 object of studying philosophy is to know one's own mind, not other peoples. — William Ralph Inge

The happy people are those who are producing something. — William Ralph Inge

William Ralph Inge Quotes About True

True faith is belief in the reality of absolute values. — William Ralph Inge

Philosophy means thinking things out for oneself. Ultimately, there can be only one true philosophy, since reason is one and we all live in the same world. — William Ralph Inge

Beautiful thoughts hardly bring us to God until they are acted upon. No one can have a true idea of right until he does it. — William Ralph Inge

William Ralph Inge Quotes About Values

The wise man is he who knows the relative value of things. — William Ralph Inge

The jealous man is so preoccupied with what he hasn't got that he fails to appreciate the value of what he has got. He loses the ability to feel glad because the sun is shining. He doesn't see the wonder and the newness of the beginning of spring. — 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

William Ralph Inge Famous Quotes And Sayings

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. — William Ralph Inge

No word in our language - not even "Socialism" - has been employed more loosely than "Mysticism." The history of the word begins in close connexion with the Greek mysteries. A mystic is one who has been, or is being, initiated into some esoteric knowledge of Divine things, about which he must keep his mouth shut. — William Ralph Inge

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

The command, 'Be fruitful and multiply', was promulgated, according to our authorities, when the population of the world consisted of two persons. — William Ralph Inge

The greatest obstacle to progress is not man's inherited pugnacity, but his incorrigible tendency to parasitism. — William Ralph Inge

I have never understood why it should be considered derogatory to the Creator to suppose that he has a sense of humour. — William Ralph Inge

Bereavement is the sharpest challenge to our trust in God; if faith can overcome this, there is no mountain which it cannot remove. — William Ralph Inge

When our first parents were driven out of Paradise, Adam is believed to have remarked to Eve, "My dear, we live in an age of transition." — 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

The right use of leisure is no doubt a harder problem than the right use of our working hours. The soul is dyed the color of its leisure thoughts. — William Ralph Inge

Beneath the dingy uniformity of international fashions in dress, man remains what he has always been; a splendid fighting animal, a self-sacrificing hero, and a blood thirsty savage. — William Ralph Inge

In imperialism nothing fails like success. If the conqueror oppresses his subjects, they will become fanatical patriots, and sooner or later have their revenge; if he treats them well, and governs them for their good, they will multiply faster than their rulers, till they claim their independence. — 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

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

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

Religion is caught, not taught. — William Ralph Inge

We must cut our coat according to our cloth, and adapt ourselves to changing circumstances. — William Ralph Inge

Faith always contains an element of risk, of venture; and we are impelled to make the venture by the affinity and attraction which we feel in ourselves. — William Ralph Inge

Experience is a good teacher, but her fees are very high. — William Ralph Inge

Deliberate cruelty to our defenceless and beautiful little cousins is surely one of the meanest and most detestable vices of which a human being can be guilty. — William Ralph Inge

We should think of the church as an orchestra in which the different churches play on different instruments while a Divine Conductor calls the tune. — 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

They who will live for others shall have great troubles, but they shall seem to them small. Those who will live for themselves shall have small troubles, but they shall seem to them great. — William Ralph Inge

A monarch frequently represents his subjects better that an elected assembly; and if he is a good judge of character he is likely to have more capable and loyal advisers. — William Ralph Inge

For better or worse, man is the tool-using animal, and as such he has become the lord of creation. When he is lord also of himself, he will deserve his self-chosen title homo sapiens. — William Ralph Inge

The Devil deserves zero tolerance. — William Ralph Inge

The fruit of the tree of knowledge always drives man from some paradise or other; and even the paradise of fools is not an unpleasant abode while it is habitable. — William Ralph Inge

The whole of nature, as has been said, is a conjugation of the verb to eat, in the active and in the passive. — William Ralph Inge

The vulgar mind always mistakes the exceptional for the important. — William Ralph Inge

Don't break the silence unless you can improve on it. — William Ralph Inge

Man will never be entirely willing to give up this world for the next nor the next world for this. — William Ralph Inge

To become a popular religion, it is only necessary for a superstition to enslave a philosophy. — William Ralph Inge

The average man is rich enough when he has a little more than he has got. — William Ralph Inge

Faith is an act of self-consecration, in which the will, the intellect, and the affections all have their place. — William Ralph Inge

There is no limit to the noble aspirations which the words "my country" may evoke. — William Ralph Inge

Boredom is a certain sign that we are allowing our faculties to rust in idleness. — William Ralph Inge

But the instinct of hoarding, like all other instincts, tends to become hypertrophied and perverted; and with the institution of private property comes another institution-that of plunder and brigandage. In private life, no motive of action is at present so powerful and so persistent as acquisitiveness, which unlike most other desires, knows no satiety. The average man is rich enough when he has a little more than he has got, and not till then. — William Ralph Inge

Christianity promises to make men free; it never promises to make them independent. — William Ralph Inge

Lutheranism is essentially German... It worships a God who is neither just nor merciful. — William Ralph Inge

The church that is married to the spirit of this age, becomes a widow in the next. — William Ralph Inge

No healthy civilization can ever be reared on a foundation of devitalized work. — William Ralph Inge

"This is old, therefore it is good"; the other says, "This is new, therefore it is better." — 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

The great discovery of the nineteenth century, that we are of one blood with the lower animals, has created new ethical obligations which have not yet penetrated the public conscience. The clerical profession has been lamentably remiss in preaching this obvious duty. — William Ralph Inge

There is no law of progress. Our future is in our own hands, to make or to mar. It will be an uphill fight to the end, and would we have it otherwise? Let no one suppose that evolution will ever exempt us from struggles. 'You forget,' said the Devil, with a chuckle, 'that I have been evolving too. — William Ralph Inge

Take away fear, and the battle of Freedom is half won. — William Ralph Inge

Civilization is being poisoned by its own waste products. — William Ralph Inge

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

Even the paradise of fools is not an unpleasant abode while it is inhabitable. — William Ralph Inge

Civilization is a disease which is almost invariably fatal. — William Ralph Inge

The whole of creation, with all of its laws, is a revelation of God. — William Ralph Inge

Faith begins as an experiment, and ends as an experience. — William Ralph Inge

Each generation takes a special pleasure in removing the household gods of its parents from their pedestals, and consigning them to the cupboard. — William Ralph Inge

Experience proves that none is so cruel as the disillusioned sentimentalist. — William Ralph Inge

There are no rewards or punishments - only consequences. — William Ralph Inge

Admiration for ourselves and our institutions is too often measured by our contempt and dislike for foreigners. — William Ralph Inge

It is becoming impossible for those who mix at all with their fellow-men to believe that the grace of God is distributed denominationally. — William Ralph Inge

Over-population is a phenomenon connected with the survival of the unfit, and it is a mechanism which has created conditions favourable to the survival of the unfit and the elimination of the fit. — William Ralph Inge

The soul is dyed by the color of its leisure hours. — William Ralph Inge

Life Lessons by William Ralph Inge

1. William Ralph Inge taught that true happiness comes from within, and that one should strive to cultivate inner peace and contentment.
2. He also believed that one should strive to be a good steward of the environment, and to live in harmony with nature.
3. Inge's teachings emphasize the importance of self-reflection and living a life of integrity, humility, and compassion.