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

William Ralph Inge

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William Ralph Inge
Men
Inherited
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Tendencies
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Evolution
Progress
Parasitism
Greatest
Incorrigible

More quotes by William Ralph Inge

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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
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The church that is married to the spirit of this age, becomes a widow in the next.
William Ralph Inge
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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
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Don't get up from the feast of life without paying for your share of it.
William Ralph Inge
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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
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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
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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
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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
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Joy is the triumph of life it is the sign that we are living our true life as spiritual beings.
William Ralph Inge
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Theater is, of course, a reflection of life. Maybe we have to improve life before we can hope to improve theater.
William Ralph Inge
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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
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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
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Nobody is bored when he is trying to make something that is beautiful or to discover something that is true.
William Ralph Inge
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No Christian can be a pessimist, for Christianity is a system of radical optimism.
William Ralph Inge
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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
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It is astonishing with how little wisdom mankind can be governed, when that little wisdom is its own.
William Ralph Inge
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The world belongs to those who think and act with it, who keep a finger on its pulse.
William Ralph Inge
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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
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Originality, I fear, is too often only undetected and frequently unconscious plagiarism.
William Ralph Inge
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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