William Ralph Inge

There are two kinds of fools: one says, "This is old, therefore it is good"; the other says, "This is new, therefore it is better."

William Ralph Inge (6 June 1860 – 26 February 1954), popularly referred to simply as Dean Inge, was an English author, Anglican prelate, professor of divinity at Cambridge, and Dean of St Paul's Cathedral.

Quotes

Christian Mysticism (1899)

• 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…
  • Christian Mysticism (1899), Preface

• The phase of thought or feeling which we call Mysticism has its origin in that which is the raw material of all religion, and perhaps of all philosophy and art as well, namely, that dim consciousness of the beyond, which is part of our nature as human beings. Men have given different names to these "obstinate questionings of sense and outward things." We may call them, if we will, a sort of higher instinct, perhaps an anticipation of the evolutionary process; or an extension of the frontier of consciousness; or, in religious language, the voice of God speaking to us. Mysticism arises when we try to bring this higher consciousness into relation with the other contents of our minds.
  • Christian Mysticism (1899), Preface

Light, Life, and Love: Selections from the German Mystics of the Middle Ages (1904)

• True contemplation considers Reality (or Being) in its manifestations as well as in its origin. If this is remembered, there need be no conflict between social morality and the inner life. Eckhart recognises that it is a harder and a nobler task to preserve detachment in a crowd than in a cell; the little daily sacrifices of family life are often a greater trial than selfimposed mortifications. "We need not destroy any little good in ourselves for the sake of a better, but we should strive to grasp every truth in its highest meaning, for no one good contradicts another." "Love God, and do as you like, say the Free Spirits. Yes; but as long as you like anything contrary to God's will, you do not love Him."
  There is much more of the same kind in Eckhart's sermons — as good and sensible doctrine as one could find anywhere.
  • Light, Life, and Love: Selections from the German Mystics of the Middle Ages (1904), p. xxx - PDF and epub at Google Books

St Paul (1914)

• The old civilisation, with all the brilliant qualities which make many moderns regret its destruction, rested on too narrow a base. The woman and the slave were left out, the woman especially by the Greeks, and the slave by the Romans.
  • "St Paul". The Quarterly Review 220: 45–68. January 1914, p. 61

Outspoken Essays (1919/1922)

• Patriotism varies, from a noble devotion to a moral lunacy.
  • "Our Present Discontents" (August 1919) in Outspoken Essays (1919), p. 2

• It is becoming impossible for those who mix at all with their fellow-men to believe that the grace of God is distributed denominationally.
  • "Our Present Discontents" (August 1919) in Outspoken Essays (1919), p. 32

• It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favour of vegetarianism while the wolf remains of a different opinion.
  • "Patriotism" (August 1919) in Outspoken Essays (1919), pp. 42-43

• The fruit of the tree of knowledge, always drives man from some paradise or other.
  • "The Idea of Progress", Romanes Lecture (27 May 1920), reprinted in Outspoken Essays: Second Series (1922)

• Civilization is a disease which is almost invariably fatal.
  • "The Idea of Progress", Romanes Lecture (27 May 1920), reprinted in Outspoken Essays: Second Series (1922)

• 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.
  • "The Idea of Progress", Romanes Lecture (27 May 1920), reprinted in Outspoken Essays: Second Series (1922)

• I believe that the accumulated experience of mankind, and his wonderful discoveries, are of great value. I only point out that they do not constitute real-progress in human nature itself,...
  • "The Idea of Progress", Romanes Lecture (27 May 1920), reprinted in Outspoken Essays: Second Series (1922)

• I have never understood why it should be considered derogatory to the Creator to suppose that he has a sense of humour.
  • "Confessio Fidei", Outspoken Essays (Second Series) (1922)

Democracy and the future (1922)

• So the pendulum swings, now violently, now slowly; and every institution not only carries within it the seeds of its own dissolution, but prepares the way for its most hated rival.
  • "Democracy and the Future" The Atlantic Monthly (March 1922)

The Victorian Age (1922)

• There are of course no beginnings or ends in history. We may walk for a few miles by the side of a river, noting its shadows and its rapids, the gorges which confine it and the plains through which it meanders; but we know that we have seen neither the beginning nor the end of its course, that the whole river has an unbroken continuity, and that sections, whether of space or time, are purely arbitrary. We are always sowing our future; we are always reaping our past.
  • The Victorian Age: the Rede Lecture for 1922

Lay Thoughts of a Dean (1926)

• Looking back, I think I can separate the years when I was happy and those when I was unhappy. But perhaps at the time I should have judged differently.
  • Lay Thoughts of a Dean (1926), p210.

• On the whole, the happiest people seem to be those who have no particular cause for being happy except the fact that they are so.
  • Lay Thoughts of a Dean (1926), p211.

Assessments and Anticipations (1929)

• 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."
  • Assessments and Anticipations (1929), p. 261

• Events in the past may be roughly divided into those which probably never happened and those which do not matter. This is what makes the trade of historian so attractive.
  • Assessments and Anticipations, "Prognostications" (1929)

More Lay Thoughts of a Dean (1931)

• There are two kinds of fools: one says, "This is old, therefore it is good"; the other says, "This is new, therefore it is better."
  • More Lay Thoughts of a Dean (1931), p. 200

The End of an Age, and Other Essays (1948)

• Racialism is a superstitious variety of nationalism. A nation is a society united by a delusion about its ancestry and by a common hatred of its neighbours.
  • III. The Curse of War

• The enemies of Freedom do not argue; they shout and they shoot.
  • IV. The Twilight of Freedom

• The effect of boredom on a large scale in history is underestimated. It is a main cause of revolutions, and would soon bring to an end all the static Utopias and the farmyard civilization of the Fabians.
  • VI. Escapism

Misattributed

• Worry is interest paid on trouble before it falls due.
  • Attributed to Inge in The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations (1993), which cites the London Observer, 14 February 1932. However, this aphorism was in circulation decades earlier, e.g., it features in an advertisement in The Grape Belt, 2 October 1906, p. 5

External links

• Works by William Ralph Inge at Project Gutenberg
• Portraits of William Ralph Inge
  • Portraits of Mary Catharine Inge, his wife
• Profile
• HyperDictionary Definition
• Information from Christian Classic Ethereal Library
  • Light, Life and Love