Neville Figgis Quotes

How far are unjust laws to be obeyed? Need they be considered laws at all, if we understand St Thomas aright? Can any government exist or claim rights apart from the consent of the governed?

Man is so made that he cannot be satisfied with less than the highest, and that he must be beaten down before he can be raised up.

In the struggle between liberty and authority the possession of a hostile printing press becomes of capital importance.

Christ does not reveal Himself to those who are satisfied. Why should He? They do not want Him.

It would be impossible to gain any adequate notion of the intellectual forces, that made up the mind of the average European statesman from 1600–1800 if we altogether omitted a consideration of the influence of Machiavelli.

It is the transformation of the desire to persecute into the claim of an inherent right to exist on the part of religious bodies that historically produces those limitations upon State actual which are the securities of freedom.

The object of Grotius was not to make men perfect or treat them as such, but to see whether there were not certain common duties generally felt as binding, if not always practised, and to set forth an ideal.

In the days of their triumph the Netherlands became the University of Europe; if we remove from the first half of the seventeenth century the thinkers, publicists, theologians, men of science, artists and gardeners who were Dutch, and take away their influence upon other nations, the record would be barren instead of fertile, despite the great name of Bacon.

... art, like religion, appeals to the non-mechanical parts of our nature, to what in us is mystic and vital.

Our world is fonder of riches, perhaps, than ever it was, but I think that it is ceasing to believe in its idol. The danger is that it should cease to have any belief at all.

True, the Christian Church still lives on. But it is only a living power in small groups. Some of its apparent strength is due to its inherited wealth and to the general lack of education. All this, however, is but for the moment.

"The Fellowship of the Mystery"; that is St. Paul's account of Churchmanship. It is a fellowship, a common life; and what is shared is a mystery, something that was once obscure, but is now in process of being made known. And this process goes on. However deep we go, there are yet farther deeps calling to us. No knowledge of God in Christ but opens the gate to a thousand fresh inquiries.

The atmosphere in literature and art, in novels and dramas, in newspapers and reviews is not only no longer Christian, but is largely anti-Christian, even on the ethical side. If you think of some of the names most honored of late, Thomas Hardy, George Meredith, Mr. Arnold Bennett, Mr. Bernard Shaw, Mr. H. G. Wells, or Mr. Henry James, none of them can be called Christian ...

Religion without a Church is not really possible, for not only is man a social animal, but religion is essentially social. And more and more is the comparative study of religion making it clear that men are fundamentally religious.

Our generation has seen one further step taken in the extension of the principles of Machiavelli. The doctrines associated with the name of Nietzsche are exactly similar to those of Machiavelli, except that they are now purely limited to individual ends ...