Malcolm Muggeridge » Quotes

He was not only a bore; he bored for England.

My opinion, my conviction, gains immensely in strength and sureness the minute a second mind as adopted it.

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.

Sex is the mysticism of materialism and the only possible religion in a materialistic society.

An orgy looks particularly alluring seen through the mists of righteous indignation.

St. Teresa of Avila described our life in this world as like a night at a second-class hotel.

Surely the glory of journalism is its transience.

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.

The truth is that a lost empire, lost power and lost wealth provide perfect circumstances for living happily and contentedly in our enchanted island.

Bad humor is an evasion of reality; good humor is an acceptance of it.

Few men of action have been able to make a graceful exit at the appropriate time.

One of the many pleasures of old age is giving things up.

Good taste and humor are a contradiction in terms, like a chaste whore.

Sex is the ersatz or substitute religion of the 20th Century.

There is no such thing as darkness; only a failure to see.