“There is a kind of God-shaped hole in many people’s lives…”
John Polkinghorne The Faith of a Physicist
“A young man who wishes to remain a sound Atheist cannot be too careful of his reading.”
C.S. Lewis, quoted in Joseph Pearce Literary Converts
“You have not come back from hell with empty hands.”
A handwritten note from André Malraux to Whittaker Chambers about his book Witness, quoted by William F. Buckley Jr. in National Review August 6, 2001 (adding “I remembered the gratitude Chambers felt” on receiving it.
“this life of dust and broken bottles”.
Mark Studdock realizing with horror that he’d spent his whole life doing things he didn’t enjoy to impress people he didn’t like, in C.S. Lewis That Hideous Strength
“‘All ‘progressive’ thought has assumed tacitly that human beings desire nothing beyond ease, security and avoidance of pain…. Hitler, because in his joyless mind he feels it with exceptional strength, knows that human beings don’t only want comfort, safety, short working-hours, hygiene, birth-control and, in general, common sense; they also, at least intermittently, want struggle and self-sacrifice, not to mention drums, flags and loyalty-parades.’”
Geoffrey Wheatcroft in The Atlantic Monthly February 2002
“We deliberate not about ends but about means.”
Aristotle Ethics
“the road to hell may just as well be paved with no intentions as with the proverbial good ones.”
“Preface to Part Two: Imperialism” in Hannah Arendt The Origins of Totalitarianism (specifically regarding the claim that the British Empire was acquired absent-mindedly).
“If chemicals had power of choice, it would be impossible to be certain that a chemical experiment would come off. If an acid ever prayed not to be led into temptation, chemistry would not be an exact science.”
G.K. Chesterton in Illustrated London News April 19, 1913 quoted in Gilbert Magazine 9-10/08