The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected.

Satan fell by the force of gravity.

If there is one fact we really can prove, from the history that we really do know, it is that despotism can be a development, often a late development and very often indeed the end...

All that is mererationalism; the superstition (that is the unreasoning repugnanceand terror) is in the person who admits there can be angels butdenies there can be devils. The superstition is in the person whoadmits there...

Latter-day scepticism is fond of calling itself progressive; but scepticism is really reactionary. Scepticism goes back; it attempts to unsettle what has already been settled. Instead of trying to break up new fields with its...

Life is indeed terribly complicated—to a man who has lost his principles.

There is the great lesson of ‘Beauty and the Beast,’ that a thing must be loved before it is lovable.

If I can put one touch of rosy sunset into the life of any man or woman, I shall feel that I have worked with God.

Who would condescend to strike down the mere things he does not fear? Who would debase himself to be merely brave, like any common prize-fighter? Who would stoop to be fearless – like a tree?...

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

The great man will come when all of us are feeling great, not when all of us are feeling small. He will ride in at some splendid moment when we all feel that we could...

Merely having an open mind is nothing. The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.

We all disapprove of prostitution; but we do not all approve of purity. The only way to discuss the social evil is to get at once to the social ideal. We can all see the...

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....

I need not pause to explain that crime is not a disease. It is criminology that is a disease.

Oh, most unhappy man,’ he cried, ‘try to be happy! You have red hair like your sister.’My red hair, like red flames, shall burn up the world,’ said Gregory.

The modern habit of saying “This is my opinion, but I may be wrong” is entirely irrational. If I say that it may be wrong, I say that is not my opinion. The modern habit...

The pure modernist is merely a snob; he cannot bear to be a month behind the fashion.

The materialist theory of history, that all politics and ethics are the expression of economics, is a very simple fallacy indeed. It consists simply of confusing the necessary conditions of life with the normal preoccupations...

I say that a man must be certain of his morality for the simple reason that he has to suffer for it.

Free verse is like free love; it is a contradiction in terms.

I do not deny, but strongly affirm, the right of the State to interfere to cure a great evil. I say that in this case it would interfere to create a great evil; and I...

The one created thing which we cannot look at is the one thing in the light of which we look at everything. Like the sun at noonday, mysticism explains everything else by the blaze of...

The objection to fairy stories is that they tell children there are dragons, but children have always known there are dragons. Fairy stories tell children that dragons can be killed.

But the truth is that there is no more conscious inconsistency between the humility of a Christian and the rapacity of a Christian than there is between the humility of a lover and the rapacity...

If we are calm,” replied the policeman, “it is the calm of organized resistance.””Eh?” said Syme, staring.”The soldier must be calm in the thick of the battle,” pursued the policeman. “The composure of an army...

St Thomas (Aqinas) loved books and lived on books… When asked for what he thanked God most, he answered simply, ‘I have understood every page I ever read’.

A man must love a thing very much if he practices it without any hope of fame or money, but even practice it without any hope of doing it well. Such a man must love...

Monotony has nothing to do with a place; monotony, either in its sensation or its infliction, is simply the quality of a person. There are no dreary sights; there are only dreary sight seers.

If grass grows and withers, it can only mean that it is part of a greater thing, which is even more real; not that the grass is less real than it looks. St. Thomas (Aquinas)...

A man is angry at a libel because it is false, but at a satire because it is true.

The pagan, or rational, virtues are such things as justice and temperance, and Christianity has adopted them. The three mystical virtues which Christianity has not adopted, but invented, are faith, hope and charity. Now… the...

There is only one thing which is generally safe from plagiarism — self-denial.

Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen...

I would look at the first chapter of any new novel as a final test of its merits. If there was a murdered man under the sofa in the first chapter, I read the story....

Men did not love Rome because she was great. She was great because they had loved her.

In other words, we may, by fixing our attention almost fiercely on the facts actually before us, force them to turn into adventures; force them to give up their meaning and fulfill their mysterious purpose.

The thing I hate about an argument is that it always interrupts a discussion.

The pessimists believe that the cosmos is a clock that is running down; the progressives believe it is a clock that they themselves are winding up. But I happen to believe that the world is...

Father Brown got to his feet, putting his hands behind him. ‘Odd, isn’t it,’ he said, ‘that a thief and a vagabond should repent, when so many who are rich and secure remain hard and...

Democracy is reproached with saying that the majority is always right. But progress says that the minority is always right.

Variability is one of the virtues of a woman. It avoids the crude requirement of polygamy. So long as you have one good wife you are sure to have a spiritual harem”.

The word “good” has many meanings. For example, if a man were to shoot his grandmother at a range of five hundred yards, I should call him a good shot, but not necessarily a good...

We are perishing for lack of wonder, not for lack of wonders.

It [feminism] is mixed up with a muddled idea that women are free when they serve their employers but slaves when they help their husbands.

The place that the shepherds found was not an academy or an abstract republic, it was not a place of myths allegorised or dissected or explained or explained away. It was a place of dreams...

One would think it would be most unwise in a man to be afraid of a skeleton, since Nature has set curious and quite insuperable obstacles to his running away from it.

In the specially Christian case we have to react against the heavy bias of fatigue. It is almost impossible to make the facts vivid, because the facts are familiar; and for fallen men it is...

I beseech you, little brothers, that you be as wise as brother Daisy and brother dandelion; for never do they lie awake thinking of tomorrow, yet they have gold crowns like kings and emperors or...

He thought his detective brain as good as the criminal’s, which was true. But he fully realised the disadvantage. “The criminal is the creative artist; the detective only the critic,” he said with a sour...