Ferdinand Mount

“The irreducible, ultimate element in religious faith is the insistence that we are created things; male and female He created them; without God we are nothing. And yet, when men and women have children and become parents, they unmistakably become creators, incompetent, accidental and partial creators, no doubt, but creators none the less. It is their inescapable duty, and, with luck, their occasional delight to care and watch over their creations; even if this creative power is partly illusory because chromosomes and chance decide the whole business, parents cannot act as if it is illusory; they cannot sincerely believe in their ultimate helplessness. They must behave like shepherds, however clumsy, and not like sheep, however well trained.

The Sermon on the Mount is a wonderful, intoxicating sermon. But it is a sermon for bachelors.”
― Ferdinand Mount, Subversive Family

“Sometimes, strolling through the ruins of earlier civilizations, we idly wonder what it must have been like to live through the end of one of them . Now we know four ourselves.”
― Ferdinand Mount, The Tears of the Rajas: Mutiny, Money and Marriage in India 1805-1905