Our friend Tuesday," said the President in a deep voice at once of quietude and volume, "our friend Tuesday doesn't seem to grasp the idea. He dresses up like a gentleman, but he seems to be too great a soul to behave like one. He insists on the ways of the stage conspirator. Now if a gentleman goes about London in a top hat and a frock-coat, no one need know that he is an anarchist. But if a gentleman puts on a top hat and a frock-coat, and then goes about on his hands and knees — well, he may attract attention. That's what Brother Gogol does. He goes about on his hands and knees with such inexhaustible diplomacy, that by this time he finds it quite difficult to walk upright."
"I am not good at goncealment," said Gogol sulkily, with a thick foreign accent; "I am not ashamed of the cause."
"Yes you are, my boy, and so is the cause of you," said the President good-naturedly. "You hide as much as anybody; but you can't do it, you see, you're such an ass! You try to combine two inconsistent methods. When a householder finds a man under his bed, he will probably pause to note the circumstance. But if he finds a man under his bed in a top hat, you will agree with me, my dear Tuesday, that he is not likely ever to forget it. Now when you were found under Admiral Biffin's bed—"
"I am not good at deception," said Tuesday gloomily, flushing.
"Right, my boy, right," said the President with a ponderous heartiness, "you aren't good at anything.


G.K. Chesterton

  Email Quote to Friends   Link to Quote   Create Short URL  Publish Text About This Quote   Share on Facebook, Twitter, and more
  See Recommended Quotes For You

Related

I lied," I said. ...
"I know it," he said.
"Then do something about it. Do anything, just ...
WILLIAM FAULKNER
I would not hurt you, little man,' he said.

'I think that I got the disorder in Mullingar...
FLANN O'BRIEN
Empathy is the new measurement of everything. It doesn't matter what religion you have, what God you...
C. JOYBELL C.
There was a guy telling his friend that he and his wife had a serious argument the night before. "Bu...
UNKNOWN
Good Morning!" said Bilbo, and he meant it. The sun was shining, and the grass was very green. But G...
J.R.R. TOLKIEN
And recite to them the news of Abraham
When he said to his father and his people: What do you ...
QURAN
You said I am a good man," he said. "But I am not that good a man. And I am--I am catastrophically i...
CASSANDRA CLARE
In Truth,” I said, “there are no rules other than you have to tell the truth.”
“How do ...
SARAH DESSEN
I saw a picture of you and Vincent in a 1968 newspaper that said you died in a fire," I said, turnin...
AMY PLUM
Halt eyed them balefully. They were all being so obvious about not mentioning his sudden reappearanc...
JOHN FLANAGAN
And so seated next to my father in the train compartment, I suddenly asked, "Father, what is sexsin?...
CORRIE TEN BOOM
Mendanbar took a deep breath. “You could stay here. At the castle, I mean. With me.” This wasn�...
PATRICIA C. WREDE
35. God is entitled to a portion of our income—not because He needs it but because we need to give...
JAMES C. DOBSON
You look different." His words, normally crisp,are now sluggish.
"So do you," I say.And he does...
VERONICA ROTH
Do you know what I see in you now? The usual aura. A steady golden yellow, healthy and strong, with ...
RICHELLE MEAD
It Couldn't Be Done

Somebody said that it couldn't be done,
But he with a chuckle repli...
EDGAR A. GUEST
His voice gentled and his touch became more like a caress. "I love you," he whispered.
"Romeo....
CAMBRIA HEBERT
My own participation in the campaign was delayed by the death of my son Calvin, which occurred on th...
CALVIN COOLIDGE
Ophelia,' said the boy. He said it very quietly. She didn't like the way he said that at all. He sou...
KAREN FOXLEE
I am a lonely man," he said again that evening. "And is it not possible that you are also a lonely p...
SōSEKI NATSUME
38. “A wet bird never flies at night.” (My grandfather said that to me when I was a child and wa...
JAMES C. DOBSON
Percy Jackson," Hermes said, "because you have taken on the curse of Achilles, I must spare you. You...
RICK RIORDAN
No sex?" He looked at me in disbelief. "Well if you can't have ze sex, what can you do?"

...
ELNA BAKER
This hand says you spend the rest of your life with me," he said, holding out his left hand, "and th...
MELINA MARCHETTA
«Hazel Grace,” he said, my name new and better in his voice. “It has been a real pleasure to ma...
JOHN GREEN
I dialed the number slowly, wanting to get it right. Two rings, and he picked up.
"Yes," I sai...
SARAH DESSEN
You went back in time,” he repeated, “and you expect his cell phone to work?”
“Well, no...
C.E. MURPHY
A man called Ali is in need of money and asks his boss to help him. His Boss sets him a challenge: i...
PAULO COELHO
What are my options?"
"You could read obscure poetry while I play the triangle, I suppose. Or w...
MICHELLE HODKIN
Next time I expect you to act a little friendlier and remember that we would like to get out of here...
TRACEY WARD
I’m looking for Fat Hoochie Prom Queen,” I declared.
He did not respond.
“It’s a b...
RACHEL COHN
Do you mean to tell me’, he growled a the Dursleys, ‘that this boy- this boy! - knows nothin’ ...
J.K. ROWLING
You’ll be angry, but I’m going to ask anyway. Will you marry me?' The unsupported voice, the one...
STEVEN BRUST
And who are you, the proud Lord said
that I must bow so low?
Only a cat of a different co...
GEORGE R.R. MARTIN
No milk," I said.

"No milk," said my sister.

I watched my dad think about this...
NEIL GAIMAN
When Pidge wakes up, let me know, okay?” he said in a soft voice. “I got spaghetti,
and pan...
JAMIE MCGUIRE
Then, suddenly again, Christopher Robin, who was still looking at the world, with his chin in his ha...
A.A. MILNE
This is what it's all been about with you," he said in an even tone. "All the fear, all
the run...
KRESLEY COLE
We gather here today,” said Robert, reaching out his arms expansively, “to honor my son, Alexand...
CASSANDRA CLARE
How lucky I am to have known somebody and something that saying goodbye to is so damned awful.
EVANS G. VALENS
Daniel, he said. I would have you follow me.

Master!....I will fight for you to the end!....
ELIZABETH GEORGE SPEARE
In a pocket of his knapsack he'd found a last half packet of cocoa and he fixed it for the boy and t...
CORMAC MCCARTHY
All I really need,” he continued, “is for you to act as a deterrent.”
“A deterrent?” ...
JULIA QUINN
In that case" Tessa said, feeling hot blood rise to her face,"I think I would prefer it if you calle...
CASSANDRA CLARE
He squeezed my shoulder and smiled at me.
I realized that I hadn't kissed him hello, I always k...
LAURELL K. HAMILTON
Buckley followed the three of them into the kitchen and asked, as he had at least once a day, “Whe...
ALICE SEBOLD
And yet here he was, looking at Jem Carstairs, a boy so fragile-looking that he appeared to be made ...
CASSANDRA CLARE
He stopped and took my hand. "If we die, or if I die..."
He was speaking of dying, and I couldn...
GAIL CARSON LEVINE
Listen to me. When a man wakes, he wakes wanting. He wakes hard and rude and aching with need.” He...
TESSA DARE
You be as angry as you need to be," she said. "Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Not your grandma...
PATRICK NESS
I'm on a roller coaster that only goes up," he said.

"And it is my privilege and my resp...
JOHN GREEN
I think we must only a few of us go," Laurence said, low. "I will take a few volunteers - "
NAOMI NOVIK
Father . . . ," Gabriel began. "Father is a worm."
Will gave a short laugh. He was in gear as i...
CASSANDRA CLARE
The useless sentries in the watchtower are now all half in love with you,” he lied. “One said he...
SARAH J. MAAS
I am no king, and I am no lord,
And I am no soldier at-arms," said he.
"I'm none but a har...
PETER S. BEAGLE
That last night,” she said quietly. “Why did you say you hoped you'd never see me again?”
ANGELA B. WADE
Halt waited a minute or two but there was no sound except for the jingling of harness and the creaki...
JOHN FLANAGAN
You've known him how long?" Malcolm asked.
"Since he was a small boy. I firs noticed him when ...
JOHN FLANAGAN
Still perfect,” he said. “Read to me.”
“This isn’t really a poem to read aloud when y...
JOHN GREEN
I'm in love with you," he said quietly.

"Augustus," I said.

"I am," he said. H...
JOHN GREEN
You deserve to be with somebody, who knows you're the one, from that very first moment he lays eyes ...
C. JOYBELL C.
Gareth sucked in a breath. Hyacinth’s brother wasn’t going to make this easy on him. But that di...
JULIA QUINN
You adopted him," I said when Romeo sat on the coffee table in front of me.
"You love him," he ...
CAMBRIA HEBERT
Why, Sam,” he said, “to hear you somehow makes me as merry as if the
story was already writ...
J.R.R. TOLKIEN
Then come here," he said, a bit redundantly, as he had already pulled her with him into an armchair ...
KRISTIN CASHORE
What is it about ye, Sassenach, I wonder?” he said conversationally, eyes still fixed on Myers. DIANA GABALDON Do you like that?” he whispered.
“Yes, I…” She fought to speak between helpless gasps....
LISA KLEYPAS
Who told you that?" I say. "Davy Prentiss?"
He blinks. "What?"
"What do you mean what PATRICK NESS
Two of us in this room, Ace, two keycards," he said and my eyes went to him. When they did, he jerke...
KRISTEN ASHLEY
No. No!” he says.
“I . . .” He looks wildly around the room. For inspiration? For divine ...
E.L. JAMES
You are real," she said to herself.

"Aye." His voice was deep and resonant, a caress in h...
J.R. WARD
Dr. Manning said he'd thought at first it might be sleeping sickness, or even narcolepsy, whatever t...
HENRY KUTTNER
Tamani checkled. ‘If it makes you feel any better, it scares the daylights our of me on a regular ...
APRILYNNE PIKE
You could be David's friend too". She glanced at Tamani when he said nothing. He was frowning. "The ...
APRILYNNE PIKE
Hello? This is Clary Fairchild.”

“Clary? It’s me, Emma.”

“Oh, Emma, ...
CASSANDRA CLARE
Hey, brah,” Quinn said.
“What is going on, do you know?” Sam asked.
“It’s a club...
MICHAEL GRANT
Thank you,” I said, turning around a little so I could talk to him. “You’re a good friend.”<...
MONICA ALEXANDER
How do we get there? How did you get here, by the way?' [Will asked].

He heard Halt's dee...
JOHN FLANAGAN
Jaenelle opened her mouth, closed it, and finally said timidly, “Do you think, when I’m grown up...
ANNE BISHOP
I knew I sounded hysterical, and Adrian’s calmness only drove that home. “I think I have an idea...
RICHELLE MEAD
You were dancing with Yuki and I looked at you. And you turned away and held her closer. Why did you...
APRILYNNE PIKE
You cold or something?' he said. She strained against him; she wanted to pass clear through him: 'It...
TRUMAN CAPOTE
I asked him if it were a mirage, and he said yes. I said it was a dream, and he agreed, But said it ...
NEIL GAIMAN
Donneven," I said, in my best Monica imitation, and he laughed. "We're not talking about me."
"...
SARAH DESSEN
She smiled at him. “How did you know just what I’d want to see?”
“How could I not?” h...
CASSANDRA CLARE
I’m in love with you,” he said quietly.
"Augustus," I said.

"I am," he said. He ...
JOHN GREEN
It’s total bullshit,” he said. “The whole thing. Eighty
percent survival rate and he’s ...
JOHN GREEN
Because I wanted you." He turned from the window to face me. "More than I ever wanted anything in my...
DIANA GABALDON
It is the mundanes who look at me and see something they do not understand—a boy who is not quite ...
CASSANDRA CLARE
You’re probably good at taking lip, aren’t you?” I mutter more to myself than to my bodyguard,...
ASHLEY POSTON
That I wasn't mad at you. Can't you see that Bella?" He was suddenly intense, all trace of te...
STEPHENIE MEYER
He will choose you, disarm you with his words, and control you with his presence. He will delight yo...
ROBERT D. HARE
Today, each of you will make a decision,” Caine said. “To go with Sam, or to stay here. I won’...
MICHAEL GRANT
„You're Ned Stark's bastard, aren't you?“
Jon felt a coldness pass right through him. He pr...
GEORGE R.R. MARTIN
...Not yet dry behind the ears, not old enough to buy a beer, but old enough to die for his country....
SARAH PALIN
Wo wei ni xie de,” he said, as he raised the violin to his left shoulder, tucking it under his chi...
CASSANDRA CLARE
— This world is full of trouble, umfundisi.
— Who knows it better?
— Yet you believ...
ALAN PATON
You look happy," he said to Clary. He swiveled his gaze to Jace. "And a good thing for you that she ...
CASSANDRA CLARE
I’ll be your family now,” he says.
“I love you,” I say.
I said that once, before I...
VERONICA ROTH
Mother,” Alec’s voice as he interrupted his mother was firm, implacable, and not unkind. “Fath...
CASSANDRA CLARE

More G.K. Chesterton

Divinity is great enough to be divine; it is great enough to call itself divine. But as humanity gro...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Poets do not go mad; but chess-players do. Mathematicians go mad, and cashiers; but creative artists...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Are you a devil?"
"I am a man," answered Father Brown gravely; "and therefore have all devils i...
G.K. CHESTERTON
For children are innocent and love justice, while most of us are wicked and naturally prefer mercy.
G.K. CHESTERTON
The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untr...
G.K. CHESTERTON
The criminal is the creative artist; the detective only the critic.
G.K. CHESTERTON
Who would condescend to strike down the mere things that he does not
fear? Who would debase him...
G.K. CHESTERTON
If we are bound to improve, we need not trouble to improve. The pure doctrine of progress is the bes...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Variability is one of the virtues of a woman. It avoids the crude requirement of polygamy. So long a...
G.K. CHESTERTON
The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because generally t...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.
G.K. CHESTERTON
The traveler sees what he sees. The tourist sees what he has come to see.
G.K. CHESTERTON
We men and women are all in the same boat, upon a stormy sea. We owe to each other a terrible and tr...
G.K. CHESTERTON
If you happen to read fairy tales, you will observe that one idea runs from one end of them to the o...
G.K. CHESTERTON
There is the great lesson of 'Beauty and the Beast,' that a thing must be loved before it is lovable...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy ...
G.K. CHESTERTON
An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wron...
G.K. CHESTERTON
I am not absentminded. It is the presence of mind that makes me unaware of everything else.
G.K. CHESTERTON
A tragey means always a man's struggle with that which is stronger than man.
G.K. CHESTERTON
Realism is simply Romanticism that has lost its reason...that is its reason for existing.
G.K. CHESTERTON
The word "good" has many meanings. For example, if a man were to shoot his grandmother at a range of...
G.K. CHESTERTON
There's a lot of difference between listening and hearing.
G.K. CHESTERTON
Do not free a camel of the burden of his hump; you may be freeing him from being a camel.
G.K. CHESTERTON
Now the best relation to our spiritual home is to be near enough to love it. But the next best is to...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Science must not impose any philosophy, any more than the telephone must tell us what to say.
G.K. CHESTERTON
There are two ways to get enough. One is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to de...
G.K. CHESTERTON
We do not need to get good laws to restrain bad people. We need to get good people to restrain us fr...
G.K. CHESTERTON
We have all read in scientific books, and, indeed, in all romances, the story of the man who has for...
G.K. CHESTERTON
A pickpocket is obviously a champion of private enterprise. But it would perhaps be an exaggeration ...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Drink because you are happy, but never because you are miserable.
G.K. CHESTERTON
Nine times out of ten a man’s broad-mindedness is necessarily the narrowest thing about him. This ...
G.K. CHESTERTON
We have never even begun to understand a people until we have found something that we do not underst...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Through all this ordeal his root horror had been isolation, and there are no words to express the ab...
G.K. CHESTERTON
There are no words to express the abyss between isolation and having one ally. It may be conceded to...
G.K. CHESTERTON
White is not a mere absence of color; it is a shining and affirmative thing, as fierce as red, as de...
G.K. CHESTERTON
The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is b...
G.K. CHESTERTON
They said that I should lose my ideals and begin to believe in the methods of practical politicians....
G.K. CHESTERTON
Hope is the power of being cheerful in circumstances that we know to be desperate.
G.K. CHESTERTON
The great Gaels of Ireland are the men that God made mad,
For all their wars are merry, and al...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Just at present you only see the tree by the light of the lamp. I wonder when you would ever see the...
G.K. CHESTERTON
If it's worth doing, it's worth doing badly. (on not perfectionism to put things off) .
G.K CHESTERTON
An adventure is only an inconvenience, rightly considered.
G.K CHESTERTON
Angels fly because they take themselves lightly.
G.K CHESTERTON
I've searched all the parks in all the cities and found no statues of committees.
G.K CHESTERTON
I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and do...
G.K CHESTERTON
How you think when you lose determines how long it will be until you win.
G.K CHESTERTON
To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labours, and holidays; to be...
G.K. CHESTERTON
In prosperity, our friends know us. In adversity, we know our friends
G.K. CHESTERTON
Happiness is a state of the soul; a state in which our natures are full of the wine of an ancient yo...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Drink because you are happy, but never because you are miserable. Never drink when you are wretched ...
G.K. CHESTERTON
The thing I hate about an argument is that it always interrupts a discussion.
G.K. CHESTERTON
I left the fairy tales lying on the floor of the nursery, and I have not found any books so sensible...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Most modern freedom is at root fear. It is not so much that we are too bold to endure rules; it is r...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Therefore I see no wrong in riding with the Nightmare to-night; she whinnies to me from the rocking ...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Imagination does not breed insanity. Exactly what does breed insanity is reason. Poets do not go mad...
G.K. CHESTERTON
The most extraordinary thing in the world is an ordinary man and an ordinary woman and their ordinar...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Another savage trait of our time is the disposition to talk about material substances instead of abo...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relat...
G.K. CHESTERTON
According to most philosophers, God in making the world enslaved it. According to Christianity, in m...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions.
G.K. CHESTERTON
A Second Childhood.”

When all my days are ending
And I have no song to sing,
...
G.K. CHESTERTON
If there is one fact we really can prove, from the history that we really do know, it is that despot...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Religious liberty might be supposed to mean that everybody is free to discuss religion. In practice ...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Love means to love that which is unlovable; or it is no virtue at all.
G.K. CHESTERTON
It [feminism] is mixed up with a muddled idea that women are free when they serve their employers bu...
G.K. CHESTERTON
I believe in getting into hot water; it keeps you clean.
G.K. CHESTERTON
A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.
G.K. CHESTERTON
Do not be so open-minded that your brains fall out.
G.K. CHESTERTON
To love means loving the unlovable. To forgive means pardoning the unpardonable. Faith means believi...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Tradition does not mean a dead town; it does not mean that the living are dead but that the dead are...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Modern art has to be what is called ‘intense.’ it is not easy to define being intense; but, roug...
G.K. CHESTERTON
It is terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged.
G.K. CHESTERTON
Through all this ordeal his root horror had been isolation, and there are no words to express the ab...
G.K. CHESTERTON
But when first the two black dragons sprang out of the fog upon the small clerk, they had merely th...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Monotony has nothing to do with a place; monotony, either in its sensation or its infliction, is sim...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Without education, we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously.
G.K. CHESTERTON
The riddles of God are more satisfying than the solutions of man.
G.K. CHESTERTON
A woman uses her intelligence to find reasons to support her intuition.
G.K. CHESTERTON
There are no rules of architecture for a castle in the clouds.
G.K. CHESTERTON
When we were children we were grateful to those who filled our stockings at Christmas time. Why are ...
G.K. CHESTERTON
If there were no God, there would be no atheists.
G.K. CHESTERTON
I have little doubt that when St. George had killed the dragon he was heartily afraid of the princes...
G.K. CHESTERTON
The woman does not work because the man tells her to work and she obeys. On the contrary, the woman ...
G.K. CHESTERTON
And as I close this chaotic volume I open again the strange small book from which all Christianity c...
G.K. CHESTERTON
In the struggle for existence, it is only on those who hang on for ten minutes after all is hopeless...
G.K. CHESTERTON
I wish we could sometimes love the characters in real life as we love the characters in romances. Th...
G.K. CHESTERTON
That is the one eternal education: to be sure enough that something is true that you dare to tell it...
G.K. CHESTERTON
The man who kills a man kills a man.
The man who kills himself kills all men.
As far as he...
G.K. CHESTERTON
The things we see every day are the things we never see at all.
G.K. CHESTERTON
When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become c...
G.K. CHESTERTON
The main point of Christianity was this: that Nature is not our mother: Nature is our sister.
G.K. CHESTERTON
We should always endeavor to wonder at the permanent thing, not at the mere exception. We should be ...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Humility is the mother of giants. One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the ...
G.K. CHESTERTON
The world will never starve for want of wonders; but only for want of wonder.
G.K. CHESTERTON
But the new rebel is a skeptic, and will not entirely trust anything. He has no loyalty; therefore h...
G.K. CHESTERTON
We fear men so much, because we fear God so little. One fear cures another. When man's terror scares...
G.K. CHESTERTON
There are two ways of getting home; and one of them is to stay there.
G.K. CHESTERTON
Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.
G.K. CHESTERTON
It may well be on such a night of clouds and cruel colors that there is brought forth upon the earth...
G.K. CHESTERTON
It was his home now. But it could not be his home till he had gone from it and returned to it. Now h...
G.K. CHESTERTON
The Catholic Church is like a thick steak, a glass of red wine, and a good cigar.
G.K. CHESTERTON
A man must be prepared not only to be a martyr, but to be a fool. It is absurd to say that a man is ...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Every man has forgotten who he is. One may understand the cosmos, but never the ego; the self is mor...
G.K. CHESTERTON
The modern mind is forced towards the future by a certain sense of fatigue, not unmixed with terror,...
G.K. CHESTERTON
People wonder why the novel is the most popular form of literature; people wonder why it is read mor...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Among the rich you will never find a really generous man even by accident. They may give their money...
G.K. CHESTERTON
All the towering materialism which dominates the modern mind rests ultimately upon one assumption; a...
G.K. CHESTERTON
The modern world is not evil; in some ways the modern world is far too good. It is full of wild and ...
G.K. CHESTERTON
The difference between the poet and the mathematician is that the poet tries to get his head into th...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Coincidences are spiritual puns.
G.K. CHESTERTON
This man's spiritual power has been precisely this, that he has distinguished between custom and cre...
G.K. CHESTERTON
There again," said Syme irritably, "what is there poetical about being in revolt? You might as well ...
G.K. CHESTERTON
The most poetical thing in the world is not being sick.
G.K. CHESTERTON
The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul...
G.K. CHESTERTON
The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity.
G.K. CHESTERTON
I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness double...
G.K. CHESTERTON
...but this is the real objection to that torrent of modern talk about treating crime as disease, ab...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Think of all those ages through which men have had the courage to die, and then remember that we hav...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Thrift is poetic because it is creative; waste is unpoetic because it is waste.
G.K. CHESTERTON
The future is a blank wall on which every man can write his own name as large as he likes; the past ...
G.K. CHESTERTON
The more truly we can see life as a fairytale, the more clearly the tale resolves itself into war wi...
G.K. CHESTERTON
It is quite easy to see why a legend is treated, and ought to be treated, more respectfully than a b...
G.K. CHESTERTON
I always like a dog so long as he isn't spelled backward.
G.K. CHESTERTON
She(Joan of Arc) put her dreams and her sentiment into her aims, where they ought to be; she put her...
G.K. CHESTERTON
In the glad old days, before the rise of modern morbidities...it used to be thought a disadvantage t...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Modern tragic writers have to write short stories; if they wrote long stories…cheerfulness would c...
G.K. CHESTERTON
The way to love anything is to realize that it may be lost.
G.K. CHESTERTON
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it.
G.K. CHESTERTON
... just as when we see a pig in a litter larger than the other pigs, we know that by an unalterable...
G.K. CHESTERTON
And it did certainly appear that the prophets had put the people (engaged in the old game of Cheat t...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Then the small man suddenly ran after them and said:
"I want to get my haircut. I say, do you k...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Adam Wayne, the conqueror, with his face flung back and his mane like a lion's, stood with his great...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Cooking is an art; it has in it personality, and even perversity, for the definition of an art is th...
G.K. CHESTERTON
I can only put it sufficiently curtly in a careless simile. A Socialist means a man who thinks a wal...
G.K. CHESTERTON
In the lower classes the school master does not work for the parent, but against the parent. Modern ...
G.K. CHESTERTON
The only persons who seem to have nothing to do with the education of the children are the parents.
G.K. CHESTERTON
We have actually contrived to invent a new kind of hypocrite. The old hypocrite, Tartuffe or Pecksni...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Now I have no notion at all of propounding a new ideal. There is no new ideal imaginable by the madn...
G.K. CHESTERTON
If you attempt an actual argument with a modern paper of opposite politics, you will have no answer ...
G.K. CHESTERTON
There are, I believe, some who still deny that England is governed by an oligarchy. It is quite enou...
G.K. CHESTERTON
But of all the instances of error arising from this physical fancy, the worst is that we have before...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Thrift is the really romantic thing; economy is more romantic than extravagance... But the thing is ...
G.K. CHESTERTON
A head can be beaten small enough until it fits the hat.
G.K. CHESTERTON
No one has even begun to understand comradeship who does not accept with it a certain hearty eagerne...
G.K. CHESTERTON
No one has even begun to understand comradeship who does not accept with it a certain hearty eagerne...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Men have not got tired of Christianity; they have never found enough Christianity to get tired of. M...
G.K. CHESTERTON
It is very currently suggested that the modern man is the heir of all the ages, that he has got the ...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Thrift is poetic because it is creative.
G.K. CHESTERTON
The chicken does not exist only in order to produce another egg. He may also exist to amuse himself,...
G.K. CHESTERTON
No man demands what he desires; each man demands what he fancies he can get. Soon people forget what...
G.K. CHESTERTON
There is not really any courage at all in attacking hoary or antiquated things, any more than in off...
G.K. CHESTERTON
When a man really tells the truth, the first truth he tells is that he himself is a liar.
G.K. CHESTERTON
In all legends men have thought of women as sublime separately but horrible in a herd.
G.K. CHESTERTON
All true friendliness begins with fire and food and drink and the recognition of rain or frost. ...E...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Babies need not to be taught a trade, but to be introduced to a world. To put the matter shortly, wo...
G.K. CHESTERTON
An historic institution, which never went right, is really quite much of a miracle as an institution...
G.K. CHESTERTON
As for the general view that the Church was discredited by the War—they might as well say that the...
G.K. CHESTERTON
The paradise of my fancy is one where pigs have wings
G.K. CHESTERTON
..."vers libre," (free verse) or nine-tenths of it, is not a new metre any more than sleeping in a d...
G.K. CHESTERTON
I do not deny, but strongly affirm, the right of the State to interfere to cure a great evil. I say ...
G.K. CHESTERTON
To complain that I could only be married once was like complaining that I had only been born once.
G.K. CHESTERTON
If you argue with a madman, it is extremely probable that you will get the worst of it; for in many ...
G.K. CHESTERTON
It is quite certain that the skirt means female dignity, not female submission; it can be proved by ...
G.K. CHESTERTON
On the third day the friends of Christ coming at daybreak to the place found the grave empty and the...
G.K. CHESTERTON
The center of every man's existence is a dream. Death, disease, insanity, are merely material accide...
G.K. CHESTERTON
I had tried to be happy by telling myself that man is an animal, like any other which sought its mea...
G.K. CHESTERTON
[Fairy tales] make rivers run with wine only to make us remember, for one wild moment, that they run...
G.K. CHESTERTON
That a good man may have his back to the wall is no more than we knew already, but that God could ha...
G.K. CHESTERTON
If Innocent is happy, it is because he is innocent. If he can defy the conventions, it is just becau...
G.K. CHESTERTON
There is something sinister about putting a leprechaun in a workhouse. The only solid comfort is tha...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Man may behold what ugliness he likes if he is sure that he will not worship it; but there are some ...
G.K. CHESTERTON
If we are calm," replied the policeman, "it is the calm of organized resistance."
"Eh?" said Sy...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Do not be proud of the fact that your grandmother was shocked at something which your are accustomed...
G.K. CHESTERTON
As long as the vision of heaven is always changing, the vision of earth will be exactly the same. No...
G.K. CHESTERTON
I mean that we here are on the wrong side of the tapestry,' answered Father Brown. 'The things that ...
G.K. CHESTERTON
How you think when you lose determines how long it will be until you win.
G.K. CHESTERTON
The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens...
G.K. CHESTERTON
No man who worships education has got the best out of education... Without a gentle contempt for edu...
G.K. CHESTERTON
A man's minor actions and arrangements ought to be free, flexible, creative; the things that should ...
G.K. CHESTERTON
A detective story generally describes six living men discussing how it is that a man is dead. A mode...
G.K. CHESTERTON
These are the days when the Christian is expected to praise every creed except his own.
G.K. CHESTERTON
There are no uninteresting things, only uninterested people.
G.K. CHESTERTON
Men invent new ideals because they dare not attempt old ideals. They look forward with enthusiasm, b...
G.K. CHESTERTON
There is a limit to human charity," said Lady Outram, trembling all over.

"There is," sai...
G.K. CHESTERTON
He wondered why the pelican was the symbol of charity, except it was that it wanted a good deal of c...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Charity is the power of defending that which we know to be indefensible. Hope is the power of being ...
G.K. CHESTERTON
We do not admire, we hardly excuse, the fanatic who wrecks this world for love of the other. But wha...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Dear Sir: Regarding your article 'What's Wrong with the World?' I am. Yours truly,
G.K. CHESTERTON
There are those who hate Christianity and call their hatred an all-embracing love for all religions.
G.K. CHESTERTON
We have all forgotten what we really are. All that we call common sense and rationality and practica...
G.K. CHESTERTON
He may be mad, but there's method in his madness. There nearly always is method in madness. It's wha...
G.K. CHESTERTON
If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.
G.K. CHESTERTON
The first two facts which a healthy boy or girl feels about sex are these: first that it is beautifu...
G.K. CHESTERTON
I regard golf as an expensive way of playing marbles.
G.K. CHESTERTON
My country, right or wrong,” is a thing that no patriot would think of saying except in a desperat...
G.K. CHESTERTON
The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.
G.K. CHESTERTON
Can you not see, […] that fairy tales in their essence are quite solid and straightforward; but th...
G.K. CHESTERTON
the things common to all men are more important than the things peculiar to any men. Ordinary things...
G.K. CHESTERTON