It is a mistake to think that some of our impulses--say mother love or patriotism--are good, and others, like sex or the fighting instinct, are bad. All we mean is that the occasions on which the fighting instinct or the sexual desire need to be restrained are rather more frequent than those for restraining mother love or patriotism. But there are situations in which it is the duty of a married man to encourage his sexual impulse and of a soldier to encourage the fighting instinct. There are also occasions on which a mother's love for her own children or a man's love for his own country have to be suppressed or they will lead to unfairness towards other people's children or countries.- C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

The view of evil implied by Marxism, expressed by Shaw and maintained by modern psychotherapy, which regards it as the by-product of circumstances which circumstances can, therefore, alter and even eliminate—has come to seem to me intolerably shallow, and the contrary view of it as endemic in man—more particularly in its Christian form, the doctrine of original sin—to express a deep and essential insight into human nature. - C. E. M. Joad (1891-1953), The Recovery of Belief [1952]

It was because we rejected the doctrine of original sin that we on the left were always being disappointed - disappointed by the failure of true socialism to arrive, by the behavior of nations and politicians, and above all by the recurrent fact of war. C. E. M. Joad (1891-1953), The Recovery of Belief [1952]

Earth's crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God; and only he who sees takes off his shoes; the rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.- Elizabeth Barrett Browning

It is better to debate a question without settling it than to settle a question without debating it -Joseph Joubert: 1754 - 1824