The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.
Men invent new ideals because they dare not attempt old ideals. They look forward with enthusiasm, because they are afraid to look back.
Thrift is poetic because it is creative; waste is unpoetic because it is waste.
Most modern freedom is at root fear. It is not so much that we are too bold to endure rules; it is rather that we are too timid to endure responsibilities.
When a man really tells the truth, the first truth he tells is that he himself is a liar.
All true friendliness begins with fire and food and drink and the recognition of rain or frost. ...Each human soul has in a sense to enact for itself the gigantic humility of the Incarnation. Every man must descend into the flesh to meet mankind.
The chicken does not exist only in order to produce another egg. He may also exist to amuse himself, to praise God, and even to suggest ideas to a French dramatist.
But of all the instances of error arising from this physical fancy, the worst is that we have before us: the habit of exhaustively describing a social sickness, and then propounding a social drug.
