Christian mystic and philosopher
Although a prolific writer of 35+ books and nominated 3 times for the Nobel Prize in Literature, Inge isn’t a very well known historical figure. His insight, however, was deep and his influence on modern—at least Christian—culture profound. Author, priest, professor of divinity, passionate animal rights supporter, and Dean of St Paul's Cathedral; he criticized the Roman Catholic Church, disapproved of democracy, promoted nudity and eugenics. A serious, preaching Christian but on the mystical side, he advocated the philosophy of Plotinus and a kind of autonomous religion based on personal experience rather than external authority.
Outspoken Essays
Sermon (1950)
The Modern Churchman
“St. Paul understood what most Christians never realize, namely, that the Gospel of Christ is not a religion, but religion itself in its most universal and deepest significance.”
from Outspoken Essays
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“The aim of education is the knowledge not of fact, but of values.”
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“It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favor of vegetarianism, while the wolf remains of a different opinion.”
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“Worry is interest paid on trouble before it comes due.”
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“A man may build himself a throne of bayonets, but he can't sit on it.”
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“A nation is a society united by a delusion about its ancestry and by common hatred of its neighbors.”
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“The enemies of freedom do not argue; they shout and they shoot.”
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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.”
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“On the whole, the happiest people seem to be those who have no particular cause for being happy except that they are so.”
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“What is a socialist? One who has yearnings to share equal profits from unequal earnings.”
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“In the spring a young man’s fancy turns … pretty fancy.”
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“Nobody is bored when he is trying to make something that is beautiful, or to discover something that is true.”
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“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.”
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“There are no rewards or punishments - only consequences.”
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“To become a popular religion, it is only necessary for a superstition to enslave a philosophy.”
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“Public opinion, a vulgar, impertinent, anonymous tyrant who deliberately makes life unpleasant for anyone who is not content to be the average person.”
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“Consciousness is a phase of mental life which arises in connection with the formation of new habits. When habit is formed, consciousness only interferes to spoil our performance.”
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“Whoever marries the spirit of this age will find himself a widower in the next.”
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“We had made a religion of our belief in progress—a baseless dream—but because we had made a religion of it, our disappointment has shaken our faith.”
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“God reveals himself in history; history is the judgment of the world”
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“Religious fanaticism, unlimited competition, and war are the murderers of freedom. Though they win victories, we now know that they end in suicide.”
from The Modern Churchman
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“either under Persian influence or by a parallel development Judaism came to believe in a future life, a resurrection, a last judgment, heaven and hell, a cosmic duel between right and darkness, and a divine Savior. A cynic might even say that we owe more to Zarathustra than to Moses.”
from Sermon (1950)
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“At the Reformation the composite elements flew apart... The Catholic became two-thirds pagan; the Protestant, at least in England, two-thirds Jew.”
from Sermon (1950)
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“Patriotism varies, from a noble devotion to a moral lunacy.”
from Outspoken Essays
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“Race and nationality are catchwords for which rulers find that their subjects are willing to fight, as they fought for what they called religion 400 years ago.”
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“Miracle is the bastard child of faith and reason, which neither parent can afford to own.”
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“The effects of boredom on a large scale in history is underestimated. It is a main cause of revolutions, nd would soon bring to an end all the static Utopias and farmyard civilization of the Fabians.”
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“Civilization is a disease almost invariably fatal unless checked in time.”
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