Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
We lose our bearings entirely by speaking of the 'lower classes' when we mean humanity minus ourselves.
It is assumed that the skeptic has no bias; whereas he has a very obvious bias in favour of skepticism.
The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.
A man cannot be wise enough to be a great artist without being wise enough to wish to be a philosopher.
The worst moment for an atheist is when he feels a profound sense of gratitude and has no one to thank.
Whenever you remove any fence, always pause long enough to ask why it was put there in the first place.
If an editor can only make people angry enough, they will write half his newspaper for him for nothing.
For fear of the newspapers politicians are dull, and at last they are too dull even for the newspapers.
The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.
Democracy means government by the uneducated, while aristocracy means government by the badly educated.
The beautification of the world is not a work of nature, but a work of art, then it involves an artist.
The modern world... has no notion except that of simplifying something by destroying nearly everything.
Whatever else we may say of our own age, for good or evil, nobody is likely to call it an Age of Reason.
And pray where in earth or heaven are there prudent marriages-Might as well talk about prudent suicides.
Nine times out of ten it is the coarse word that condemns an evil, and the refined word that excuses it.
Real development is not leaving things behind, as on a road, but drawing life from them, as from a root.
To be born into this earth is to be born into uncongenial surroundings, hence to be born into a romance.
And when it rains on your parade, look up rather than down. Without the rain, there would be no rainbow.
A strange fanaticism fills our time: the fanatical hatred of morality, especially of Christian morality.
When people begin to ignore human dignity, it will not be long before they begin to ignore human rights.
Ritual will always mean throwing away something: destroying our corn or wine upon the altar of our gods.
Truth, of course, must of necessity be stranger than fiction, for we have made fiction to suit ourselves.
Democracy is like blowing your nose. You may not do it well, but it's something you ought to do yourself.
In a world flagrant with the failures of civilization, what is there particularly immortal about our own?
Brave men are all vertebrates; they have their softness on the surface and their toughness in the middle.
Literature and fiction are two entirely different things. Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity.
When you break the big laws, you do not get liberty; you do not even get anarchy. You get the small laws.
The martyr endured tortures to affirm his belief in truth but he never asserted his disbelief in torture.
It is still bad taste to be an avowed atheist. But now it is equally bad taste to be an avowed Christian.
I would never commit the positively anti-social action of robbing a bank, or worse still, working in one.
Teach to the young, men's enduring truths, and let the learned amuse themselves with their passing errors.
the object of a new year is not that we should have a new year, but rather that we should have a new soul.
With every step of our lives we enter into the middle of some story which we are certain to misunderstand.
When belief in God becomes difficult, the tendency is to turn away from Him; but in heaven's name to what?
Puritanism was an honourable mood; it was a noble fad. In other words, it was a highly creditable mistake.
A citizen can hardly distinguish between a tax and a fine, except that the fine is generally much lighter.
If the world becomes pagan and perishes, the last man left alive would do well to quote the Iliad and die.
The modern world is filled with men who hold dogmas so strongly that they do not even know they are dogmas.
Meaninglessness does not come from being weary of pain. Meaninglessness comes from being weary of pleasure.
The humorous look of children is perhaps the most endearing of all the bonds that hold the Cosmos together.
Time and again, the Faith has to all appearances gone to the dogs. But each time, it was the dog that died.
The one created thing which we cannot look at is the one thing in the light of which we look at everything.
I left the fairy tales lying on the floor of the nursery, and I have not found any books so sensible since.
And they that rule in England, in stately conclaves met, alas, alas for England they have no graves as yet.
When a person has found something which he prefers to life itself, he for the first time has begun to live.
When giving treats to friends or children, give them what they like, emphatically not what is good for them.
Thoughts on the Merits of Work The worst of work nowadays is what happens to people when they cease to work.
The Catholic Church is the only thing that saves man from the degrading slavery of being a child of his age.
"Are you a devil?" "I am a man," answered Father Brown gravely; "and therefore have all devils in my heart."
Suppose, my dear Chadd, suppose it is we who are the idiots because we are not afraid of devils in the dark?