Ronald Knox

"Only those of us, I think, who were born under Queen Victoria know what it feels like to assume, without questioning, that England is permanently top nation, that foreigners do not matter, and that if…"

"Words are living things, full of shades of meaning, full of associations; and, what is more, they are apt to change their significance from one generation to the next. The translator who understands h…"

"All these riches, then, of her theology the Church has acquired, one might almost say, like the British Empire, in a fit of absence of mind. She was so busy scrapping with the heretics that she wasn't…"

"It doesn't do to say that heresy produces the development of doctrine, because that annoys the theologians. But it is true to say that as a matter of history the development of doctrine has been large…"

"If you have a sloppy religion you get a sloppy atheism."

"Only man has dignity; only man, therefore, can be funny."

"The prevailing attitude of the speakers was one of heavy disagreement with a number of things which the reader had not said."

"I suppose there has been no subtler attack upon the Christian faith devised by its enemies in these last hundred years than the attack made in the name of "comparative religion". If you pick up a book…"