John's Favourite Non-personal Quotes

These used to take up practically all of my Facebook profile; I have since decided that there's not much point putting a quote there unless it's somehow directly relevant to myself as a person. These quotes are probably in the database of quotes for my main website (a random quote gets picked and displayed in the right sidebar every time you load a page there), but they may not be. They are here because I think they speak to something very true about society or humanity. In no particular order:

• When a thing is funny, search it for a hidden truth. - George Bernard Shaw
• If individuals live only seventy years, then a state, or a nation, or a civilization, which may last for a thousand years, is more important than an individual. But if Christianity is true, then the individual is not only more important but incomparably more important, for he is everlasting and the life of a state or a civilization, compared with his, is only a moment. - C.S. Lewis
• ...a self-righteous prig who goes regularly to church may be far nearer to hell than a prostitute. - C.S. Lewis
• Christians have often disputed as to whether what leads the Christian home is good actions, or Faith in Christ. I have no right to speak on such a difficult question, but it does seem to me like asking which blade in a pair of scissors is most necessary. - C.S. Lewis
• The great difficulty which history records is not that of the first step, but that of the second step. - Walter Bagehot
• ...an inability to stay quiet, an irritable desire to act directly, is one of the most conspicuous failings of mankind. - Walter Bagehot
• I started out by believing God for a newer car than the one I was driving. I started out believing God for a nicer apartment than I had. Then I moved up. - Walter Bagehot
• The being without an opinion is so painful to human nature that most people will leap to a hasty opinion rather than undergo it. - Walter Bagehot
• If socialists mean that under extraordinary circumstances, for urgent cases, the state should set aside some resources to assist certain unfortunate people, to help them adjust to changing conditions, we will, of course, agree. This is done now; we desire that it be done better. There is however, a point on this road that must not be passed; it is the point where governmental foresight would step in to replace individual foresight and thus destroy it. - Frédéric Bastiat