Joseph Laughlin > Joseph's Quotes

“One canon reduced to writing by God himself, two testaments, three creeds, four general councils, five centuries, and the series of Fathers in that period – the centuries that is, before Constantine, and two after, determine the boundary of our faith.”
― Lancelot Andrewes

“A man who has been in another world does not come back unchanged.”
― C.S. Lewis, Perelandra

“We have learned of evil, though not as the Evil One wished us to learn. We have learned better than that, and know it more, for it is waking that understands sleep and not sleep that understands waking. There is an ignorance of evil that comes from being young: there is a darker ignorance that comes from doing it, as men by sleeping lose the knowledge of sleep.”
― C.S. Lewis

“There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done." All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. Those who knock it is opened.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce

“You cannot love a fellow creature fully till you love God.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce

“Error never shows itself in its naked reality, in order not to be discovered. On the contrary, it dresses elegantly, so that the unwary may be led to believe that it is more truthful than truth itself.”
― Irenaeus of Lyons

“And the trespass which came by the tree was undone by the tree of obedience, when, hearkening unto God, the Son of man was nailed to the tree; thereby putting away the knowledge of evil and bringing in and establishing the knowledge of good: now evil it is to disobey God, even as hearkening unto God is good.-”
― Irenaeus, On the Apostolic Preaching

“If I am occasionally a little over-dressed, I make up for it by being always immensely over-educated.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest

“I am sick to death of cleverness. Everybody is clever nowadays. You can't go anywhere without meeting clever people. The thing has become an absolute public nuisance. I wish to goodness we had a few fools left.
ALGERNON: We have.
JACK: I should extremely like to meet them. What do they talk about?
ALGERNON: The fools? Oh! about the clever people of course.
JACK: What fools.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest

“There is this difference between the growth of some human beings and that of others: in the one case it is a continuous dying, in the other a continuous resurrection.”
― George MacDonald, The Princess and Curdie

“As Curdie grew, he grew at this time faster in body than in mind—with the usual consequence, that he was getting rather stupid—one of the chief signs of which was that he believed less and less in things he had never seen. ... On his way to and from the mine he took less and less notice of bees and butterflies, moths and dragonflies, the flowers and the brooks and the clouds. He was gradually changing into a commonplace man.”
― George MacDonald, The Princess and the Curdie

“thou shalt not kill a child by abortion, neither shalt thou slay it when born;”
― The Twelve Apostles, The Didache

“There are a dozen views about everything until you know the answer. Then there's never more than one.”
― C.S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength

“Don't you like a rather foggy day in a wood in autumn? You'll find we shall be perfectly warm sitting in the car."
Jane said she'd never heard of anyone liking fogs before but she didn't mind trying. All three got in.
"That's why Camilla and I got married, "said Denniston as they drove off. "We both like Weather. Not this or that kind of weather, but just Weather. It's a useful taste if one lives in England."
"How ever did you learn to do that, Mr. Denniston?" said Jane. "I don't think I should ever learn to like rain and snow."
"It's the other way round," said Denniston. "Everyone begins as a child by liking Weather. You learn the art of disliking it as you grow up. Noticed it on a snowy day? The grown-ups are all going about with long faces, but look at the children - and the dogs? They know what snow's made for."
"I'm sure I hated wet days as a child," said Jane.
"That's because the grown-ups kept you in," said Camilla. "Any child loves rain if it's allowed to go out and paddle about in it.”
― C.S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength

“The laws of the universe are never broken. Your mistake is to think that the little regularities we have observed on one planet for a few hundred years are the real unbreakable laws; whereas they are only the remote results which the true laws bring about more often than not; as a kind of accident.”
― C.S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength

“Nietzsche was stupid and abnormal.”
― Leo Tolstoy

“Love bade me welcome;
yet my soul drew back,
Guiltie of dust and sin.”
― George Herbert

“You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.”
― C.S. Lewis

“When once your foot enters the church, be bare.
God is more there, than thou: for thou art there
Only by his permission. Then beware,
And make thyself all reverence and fear.
Kneeling ne’er spoil’d silk stocking: quit thy state
All equal are within the church’s gate.”
― George Herbert, From the Temple