Ronald Knox

When suave politeness, temp'ring bigot zealCorrected I believe to One does feel.

— Ronald Knox

There once was a man who said: "GodWhen there's no one about in the Quad."

— Ronald Knox

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

— Ronald Knox

It is so stupid of modern civilization to have given up believing in the devil, when he is the only explanation of it.

— Ronald Knox

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

— 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 the worst comes to the worst, Lord Salisbury will send a gunboat.

— Ronald Knox

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 largely a reaction on the Church's part to the attacks of heresy.

— Ronald Knox

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 conscious of saying anything she hadn't always said; and yet, when she had time to sit down and look about her, she found it took ten minutes to sing the Credo instead of three.

— Ronald Knox

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

— Ronald Knox

He who travels in the Barque of Peter had better not look too closely into the engine room.

— Ronald Knox