The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations Preface

It would be a gain to the country were it vastly more superstitious, more bigoted, more gloomy,
more fierce in its religion than at present it shows itself to be.
‘Apologia pro Vita Sua’ (1864) ‘History of My Religious Opinions from 1833 to 1839’
From the age of fifteen, dogma has been the fundamental principle of my religion: I know no
other religion; I cannot enter into the idea of any other sort of religion; religion, as a mere
sentiment, is to me a dream and a mockery.
‘Apologia pro Vita Sua’ (1864) ‘History of My Religious Opinions from 1833 to 1839’
This is what the Church is said to want, not party men, but sensible, temperate, sober, welljudging
persons, to guide it through the channel of no-meaning, between the Scylla and
Charybdis of Aye and No.
‘Apologia pro Vita Sua’ (1864) ‘History of My Religious Opinions from 1833 to 1839’
Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt.
‘Apologia pro Vita Sua’ (1864) ‘Position of my Mind since 1845’
The all-corroding, all-dissolving scepticism of the intellect in religious enquiries.
‘Apologia pro Vita Sua’ (1864) ‘Position of my Mind since 1845’
It is almost a definition of a gentleman to say that he is one who never inflicts pain.
‘The Idea of a University’ (1852) ‘Knowledge and Religious Duty’
She [the Catholic Church] holds that it were better for sun and moon to drop from heaven, for
the earth to fail, and for all the many millions who are upon it to die of starvation in extremest
agony, as far as temporal affliction goes, than that one soul, I will not say, should be lost, but
should commit one single venial sin, should tell one wilful untruth...or steal one poor farthing
without excuse.
‘Lectures on Anglican Difficulties’ (1852) Lecture 8
And this is all that is known, and more than all—yet nothing to what the angels know—of the
life of a servant of God, who sinned and repented, and did penance and washed out his sins, and
became a Saint, and reigns with Christ in heaven.
‘Lives of the English Saints’ (1844-5) ‘The Legend of Saint Bettelin’; though attributed to Newman the
phrase ‘and more than all’ may have been added by J. A. Froude
It is as absurd to argue men, as to torture them, into believing.
‘The Usurpations of Reason’ (1831), in ‘Oxford University Sermons’ (1843) no. 4
When men understand what each other mean, they see, for the most part, that controversy is
either superfluous or hopeless.
‘Faith and Reason, contrasted as Habits of Mind’ (Epiphany, 1839), in ‘Oxford University Sermons’ (1843)
no. 10
May He support us all the day long, till the shades lengthen, and the evening comes, and the
busy world is hushed, and the fever of life is over, and our work is done! Then in His mercy may
He give us a safe lodging, and a holy rest, and peace at the last.
‘Wisdom and Innocence’ (19 February 1843), in ‘Sermons Bearing on Subjects of the Day’ (1843) no. 20
Firmly I believe and truly
God is Three, and God is One;