Ronald Knox

File:Ronaldknox.jpg

Monsignor Ronald Knox

Ronald Arbuthnott Knox (17 February 1888 – 24 August 1957) was an English theologian, priest and crime writer.

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• When suave politeness, temp'ring bigot zeal
  Corrected I believe to One does feel.
  • "Absolute and Abitofhell", Oxford Magazine, October 1913

• There once was a man who said: "God
  Must think it exceedingly odd
  If he finds that this tree
  Continues to be
  When there's no one about in the Quad."
  • Langford Reed, The Complete Limerick Book (1924)
  • The topic of this limerick and the following one is George Berkeley's philosophical principle, "to be is to be perceived".

• Dear Sir,
  Your astonishment's odd;
  I am always about in the Quad;
  And that's why the tree
  Will continue to be,
  Since observed by
  Yours faithfully,
  God.
  • Langford Reed, The Complete Limerick Book (1924)
  • Although this reply is anonymous, it is usually also attributed to Knox. (See, for example, a Guardian editorial for 3 September 2010.) Given the supposedly divine provenance of the limerick, the lack of a human author would appear to be part of the joke.

• Only man has dignity; only man, therefore, can be funny.
  • Essays in Satire, Introduction (1928)

• It is stupid of modern civilization to have given up believing in the devil, when he is the only explanation of it.
  • Let Dons Delight, Chapter 8 (1939)

• The prevailing attitude of the speakers was one of heavy disagreement with a number of things which the reader had not said.
  • Let Dons Delight (1939)

• A loud noise at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.
  • Definition of a baby, quoted by Colin Blakemore in his 1976 Reith Lectures, Mechanics of the Mind

• He who travels in the Barque of Peter had better not look too closely into the engine room.
  • Reply when asked why he did not visit Rome, quoted in Penelope Fitzgerald, The Knox Brothers (1977)