G. K. Chesterton

“There are two ways of dealing with nonsense in this world. One way is to put nonsense in the right place; as when people put nonsense into nursery rhymes. The other is to put nonsense in the wrong place; as when they put it into educational addresses, psychological criticisms, and complaints against nursery rhymes or other normal amusements of mankind.”

“It is terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged.”

“And I will add this point of merely personal experience of humanity: when men have a real explanation they explain it, eagerly and copiously and in common speech, as Huxley freely gave it when he thought he had it. When they have no explanation to offer, they give short dignified replies, disdainful of the ignorance of the multitude.”

“A mystic is a man who separates heaven and earth even if he enjoys them both.”

“The men that worked for England They have their graves at home; * * * * And they that rule in England In stately conclave met, Alas, alas, for England, They have no graves as yet.”

“When a politician is in opposition he is an expert on the means to some end; and when he is in office he is an expert on the obstacles to it.”

“I do not, in my private capacity, believe that a baby gets his best physical food by sucking his thumb; nor that a man gets his best moral food by sucking his soul, and denying its dependence on God or other good things. I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.”

“All government is an ugly necessity.”

“To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it.”

“I object to a quarrel because it always interrupts an argument.”

“Among the rich you will never find a really generous man even by accident. They may give their money away, but they will never give themselves away; they are egotistic, secretive, dry as old bones. To be smart enough to get all that money you must be dull enough to want it.”

“Either criticism is no good at all (a very defensible position) or else criticism means saying about an author the very things that would have made him jump out of his boots.”

“The whole difference between construction and creation is exactly this: that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists, as the mother can love the unborn child.”

“The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people.”

“Men do not differ much about what things they will call evils; they differ enormously about what evils they will call excusable.”

“When learned men begin to use their reason, then I generally discover that they haven't got any.”

“The riddles of God are more satisfying than the solutions of man.”

“When people impute special vices to the Christian Church, they seem entirely to forget that the world (which is the only other thing there is) has these vices much more. The Church has been cruel; but the world has been much more cruel. The Church has plotted; but the world has plotted much more. The Church has been superstitious; but it has never been so superstitious as the world is when left to itself.”

“Without education, we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously.”

“I think that if they gave me leave,    Within the world to stand, I would be good through all the day    I spent in fairyland. {{pb}} They should not hear a word from me,    Of selfishness or scorn, If only I could find the door,    If only I were born.”