Malcolm Muggeridge Quotes


"Sex is the ersatz or substitute religion of the 20th Century."
- Malcolm Muggeridge
(Related: Religion, Sex)

"People do not believe lies because they have to, but because they want to."
- Malcolm Muggeridge
(Related: People, Lies, Want)

"Sex is the mysticism of materialism and the only possible religion in a materialistic society."
- Malcolm Muggeridge
(Related: Religion, Society, Sex, Materialism)

"St. Teresa of Avila described our life in this world as like a night at a second-class hotel."
- Malcolm Muggeridge
(Related: Life, Night, World)

"The orgasm has replaced the cross as the focus of longing and fulfillment."
- Malcolm Muggeridge
(Related: Focus, Fulfillment, Longing)

"The pursuit of happiness, which American citizens are obliged to undertake, tends to involve them in trying to perpetuate the moods, tastes and aptitudes of youth."
- Malcolm Muggeridge
(Related: Happiness, American, Moods, Pursuit, Trying, Youth)

"The trouble with kingdoms of heaven on earth is that they're liable to come to pass, and then their fraudulence is apparent for all to see. We need a kingdom of heaven in Heaven, if only because it can't be realized."
- Malcolm Muggeridge
(Related: Earth, Heaven, Trouble)

"There is no such thing as darkness; only a failure to see."
- Malcolm Muggeridge
(Related: Failure, Darkness)

"Travel, of course, narrows the mind."
- Malcolm Muggeridge
(Related: Travel, Mind)

"One of the peculiar sins of the twentieth century which we've developed to a very high level is the sin of credulity. It has been said that when human beings stop believing in God they believe in nothing. The truth is much worse: they believe in anything."
- Malcolm Muggeridge
(Related: God, Truth, Credulity, Nothing, Sin)

"This horror of pain is a rather low instinct and... if I think of human beings I've known and of my own life, such as it is, I can't recall any case of pain which didn't, on the whole, enrich life."
- Malcolm Muggeridge
(Related: Life, Horror, Instinct, Pain)

"Good taste and humor are a contradiction in terms, like a chaste whore."
- Malcolm Muggeridge
(Related: Humor, Contradiction, Taste)

"Every happening, great and small, is a parable whereby God speaks to us, and the art of life is to get the message."
- Malcolm Muggeridge
(Related: Art, Life, God)

"One of the many pleasures of old age is giving things up."
- Malcolm Muggeridge
(Related: Age, Giving, Old)

"Few men of action have been able to make a graceful exit at the appropriate time."
- Malcolm Muggeridge
(Related: Men, Time, Action)

"He was not only a bore; he bored for England."
- Malcolm Muggeridge
(Related: England)

"History will see advertising as one of the real evil things of our time. It is stimulating people constantly to want things, want this, want that."
- Malcolm Muggeridge
(Related: History, Time, People, Advertising, Evil, Want, Will)

"How do I know pornography depraves and corrupts? It depraves and corrupts me."
- Malcolm Muggeridge
(Related: Pornography)

"I can say that I never knew what joy was like until I gave up pursuing happiness, or cared to live until I chose to die. For these two discoveries I am beholden to Jesus."
- Malcolm Muggeridge
(Related: Happiness, Joy)

"It was a somber place, haunted by old jokes and lost laughter. Life, as I discovered, holds no more wretched occupation than trying to make the English laugh."
- Malcolm Muggeridge
(Related: Life, English, Jokes, Laughter, Occupation, Old, Trying)

"My opinion, my conviction, gains immensely in strength and sureness the minute a second mind as adopted it."
- Malcolm Muggeridge
(Related: Strength, Conviction, Mind, Opinion)

"Never forget that only dead fish swim with the stream."
- Malcolm Muggeridge
(Related: Fish, Forget)

"Bad humor is an evasion of reality; good humor is an acceptance of it."
- Malcolm Muggeridge
(Related: Humor, Acceptance, Reality)