Diarmaid MacCulloch Quotes

#1. Human societies are based on the human tendency to want things, and are geared to satisfying those wants: possessions or facilities to bring ease and personal satisfaction. The results are frequently disappointing, and always terminate in the embarrassing non sequitur of death.

Diarmaid MacCulloch

#2. Thucydides had grasped that vital historical insight that groups of people behave differently and have different motivations from individual human beings, and that they often behave far more discreditably than individuals. He

Diarmaid MacCulloch

#3. when John Locke published his celebrated Letters concerning toleration in the aftermath of England's Glorious Revolution, he still excluded Roman Catholics and atheists from his proposals, on the grounds that they were enemies to the English state.

Diarmaid MacCulloch

#4. I was brought up in the presence of the Bible, and I remember with affection what it was like to hold a dogmatic position on the statements of Christian belief. I would now describe myself as a candid friend of Christianity

Diarmaid MacCulloch

#5. Meanwhile, in a final insult of fate, the Queen and Cardinal Pole died on the same day in November 1558, Pole the victim of an exceptionally vicious influenza epidemic.

Diarmaid MacCulloch

#6. Calvin had a talent for inventing abusive nicknames and he styled this amorphous opposition 'Libertines', which had a conveniently scandalous resonance, while also reflecting the undoubted fact that his opponents sought a freedom for which he saw no need.

Diarmaid MacCulloch

#7. There is no surer basis for fanaticism than bad history, which is invariably history oversimplified.

Diarmaid MacCulloch