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. - Neville Figgis

Machiavelli was always considering the practical problem, how is Italy to be saved?

War! That is the enduring condition of the Church on this earth. That is what the word means when we call her militant. And war means an enemy, an opposing spirit.

The universe contemplated by religion is by no means self-contained or self-sufficient, it is dependent for its origin and maintenance, as we are for daily bread and future hopes, upon the power and good-will of a being or beings of which science has no knowledge.