If our social relations and records retain their continuity, if men really learn to apply reason to the accumulating facts of so crushing a story, it would seem that sooner or later even its enemies will learn from their incessant and interminable disappointments not to look for anything so simple as [Christianity's] death. They may continue to war with it, but it will be as they war with nature, as they war with the landscape, as they war with the skies. 'Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.' They will watch for it to stumble; they will watch for it to err; they will no longer watch for it to end. Insensibly, even unconsciously, they will in their own silent anticipations fulfil the relative terms of that astounding prophecy; they will forget to watch for the mere extinction of what has so often been vainly extinguished; and will learn instinctively to look first for the coming of the comet or the freezing of the star.
—G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man.
Spontaneous Generation
Nobody can imagine how nothing could turn into something. Nobody can get an inch nearer to it by explaining how something could turn into something else. It is really far more logical to start by saying 'In the beginning God created heaven and earth' even if you only mean 'In the beginning some unthinkable power began some unthinkable process.' For God is by its nature a name of mystery, and nobody ever supposed that man could imagine how the world was created any more than he could create one.
—G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man.
—G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man.
Logic
Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic.
—Frank Herbert, Dune.
—Frank Herbert, Dune.
Prayer
His prayers were the most eloquent ever addressed to a Boston audience.
—A Harvard professor, speaking of a Rev. Dr. Huntington, according to 'The Christian at Work', as quoted in The Chautauquan: a weekly newsmagazine, Volume 5, ©1885.
(The minister referred to was likely William R. Huntington, a curate of Emmanuel Church, Boston until c.1884 and then Episcopal Bishop of Central New York until his death in 1909. He was a leading actor in the preparation of the Standard Prayer Book of 1892 and a friend of J. Pierpont Morgan.)
—A Harvard professor, speaking of a Rev. Dr. Huntington, according to 'The Christian at Work', as quoted in The Chautauquan: a weekly newsmagazine, Volume 5, ©1885.
(The minister referred to was likely William R. Huntington, a curate of Emmanuel Church, Boston until c.1884 and then Episcopal Bishop of Central New York until his death in 1909. He was a leading actor in the preparation of the Standard Prayer Book of 1892 and a friend of J. Pierpont Morgan.)
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