William Inge

“In dealing with Englishmen you can be sure of one thing only, that the logical solution will not be adopted.”

“A cat can be trusted to purr when she is pleased, which is more than can be said for human beings.”

“Theater is, of course, a reflection of life. Maybe we have to improve life before we can hope to improve theater.”

“It is astonishing with how little wisdom mankind can be governed, when that little wisdom is its own.”

“Prayer gives a man the opportunity of getting to know a gentleman he hardly ever meets. I do not mean his maker, but himself.”

“The wise man is he who knows the relative value of things.”

“A man may build himself a throne of bayonets, but he can't sit on it.”

“There are no rewards or punishments - only consequences.”

“If the universe is running down like a clock, the clock must have been wound up at a date which we could name if we knew it. The world, if it is to have an end in time, must have had a beginning in time.”

“A good government remains the greatest of human blessings and no nation has ever enjoyed it.”

“Gambling is a disease of barbarians superficially civilized.”

“It was said that Mr. Gladstone could persuade most people of most things, and himself of anything.”

“In praising science, it does not follow that we must adopt the very poor philosophies which scientific men have constructed. In philosophy they have much more to learn than to teach.”

“All faith consists essentially in the recognition of a world of spiritual values behind, yet not apart from, the world of natural phenomena.”

“The wisdom of the wise is an uncommon degree of common sense.”

“Faith always contains an element of risk, of venture; and we are impelled to make the venture by the affinity and attraction which we feel in ourselves.”

“No Christian can be a pessimist, for Christianity is a system of radical optimism.”

“The enemies of freedom do not argue; they shout and they shoot.”

“Let none of us delude himself by supposing that honesty is always the best policy. It is not.”

“Man, as we know him, is a poor creature; he is halfway between an ape and a god and he is travelling in the right direction.”