Atheism was natural enough, but heresy seemed strange. For, surely, if one could believe anything, one could believe everything. Rose Macaulay More Quotes by Rose Macaulay More Quotes From Rose Macaulay Work is a dull thing; you cannot get away from that. The only agreeable existence is one of idleness, and that is not, unfortunately, always compatible with continuing to exist at all. Rose Macaulay existence work dull One never feels such distaste for one's countrymen and countrywomen as when one meets them abroad. Rose Macaulay countrymen feels travel Another sad comestive truth is that the best foods are the products of infinite and wearying trouble. The trouble need not be taken by the consumer, but someone, ever since the Fall, has had to take it. Rose Macaulay taken food fall Publishers of course have you altogether in their grip; if they say you must do a thing you have jolly well got to do it. Rose Macaulay jolly wells courses When I have eaten mangoes, I have felt like Eve. Rose Macaulay felt food To be prejudiced is the privilege of the thinking human being. ... The open mind is the empty mind. Rose Macaulay empty-mind prejudice thinking Behavior of such cunning cruelty that only a human being could have thought of or contrived it we call 'inhuman,' revealing thus some pathetic ideal standard for our species that survives all betrayals. Rose Macaulay standards betrayal behavior what about Christianity? Are we right in the face of so long a record of its poverty in international achievement, to keep invoking it as a standard, almost synonymous with civilization? Rose Macaulay achievement civilization long miss my daily Mass, and have a superstitious feeling that anything may happen on the days I don't go. However, nothing in particular has. Rose Macaulay missing feelings may Churches are wonderful and beautiful, and they are vehicles for religion, but no Church can have more than a very little of the truth. Rose Macaulay church littles beautiful [Religion is a] primitive insurance against disaster. ... Originally religion was merely a function of the self-preservative instinct. Offer sacrifices to the gods and save your crops. And even Christianity, after all, insures heavily against the flaws in this life by belief in another. Rose Macaulay sacrifice belief self One day I shall write a little book of conduct myself, and I shall call it Social Problems of the Unsociable. And the root problem, beneath a hundred varying manifestions, is How to Escape. How to escape, that is, at those times, be they few or frequent, when you want to keep yourself to yourself. Rose Macaulay roots writing book Traveling together is a great test, which has damaged many friendships and even honeymoons, and some people such as [Thomas] Gray and Horace Walpole, never feel quite the same to one another again, and it is nobody's fault, as one knows if one listens to the stories of both, though it seems to be some people's fault more than others. Rose Macaulay together people travel Here is one of the points about this planet which should be remembered; into every penetrable corner of it, and into most of the impenetrable corners, the English will penetrate. They are like that; born invaders. They cannot stay at home. Rose Macaulay born england home The last sin, the sin against the Holy Ghost - to lie to oneself. Lying to other people - that's a small thing in comparison. Rose Macaulay lasts lying people There's one thing about freedom ... each generation of people begins by thinking they've got it for the first time in history, and ends by being sure the generation younger than themselves have too much of it. It can't really always have been increasing at the rate people suppose, or there would be more of it by now. Rose Macaulay freedom people thinking Never approach a friend's wife or girlfriend with mischief as your goal... unless she's really attractive. Rose Macaulay girlfriend wife goal It was a book to kill time for those who like it better dead. Rose Macaulay dead better time book
