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

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

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

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

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

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

How do I know pornography depraves and corrupts? It depraves and corrupts me.
Malcolm Muggeridge

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

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

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


Never forget that only dead fish swim with the stream.
Malcolm Muggeridge

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

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

People do not believe lies because they have to, but because they want to.
Malcolm Muggeridge

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

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

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

Surely the glory of journalism is its transience.
Malcolm Muggeridge

The orgasm has replaced the cross as the focus of longing and fulfillment.
Malcolm Muggeridge

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