"You do not mean by mystery what a Catholic does. You mean an interesting uncertainty: the uncertainty ceasing, interest ceases also... But a Catholic by mystery means an incomprehensible certainty: without certainty, without formulation there is no interest;... the clearer the formulation the greater the interest."

“That is the great end of empires before God, to be Catholic and draw nations into their Catholicism. But our empire is less and less Christian as it grows.”

“All the world is full of inscape and chance left free to act falls into an order as well as purpose.”

“I always knew in my heart Walt Whitman’s mind to be more like my own than any other man’s living. As he is a very great scoundrel this is not a pleasant confession.”

“Searching nature I taste self but at one tankard, that of my own being.”

“I think that the trivialness of life is, and personally to each one, ought to be seen to be, done away with by the Incarnation.”

“It is a happy thing that there is no royal road to poetry. The world should know by this time that one cannot reach Parnassus except by flying thither.”