K. Chesterton
K. Chesterton
sleep may architecture
Free verse'? You may as well call sleeping in a ditch 'free architecture'.
men alive detectives
A detective story generally describes six living men discussing how it is that a man is dead. A modern philosophic story generally describes six dead men discussing how any man can possibly be alive.
today exhilaration vices
The act of defending any of the cardinal virtues has today all the exhilaration of a vice.
christian humanity truth-is
The truth is, of course, that the curtness of the Ten Commandments is an evidence, not of the gloom and narrowness of a religion, but, on the contrary, of its liberality and humanity. It is shorter to state the things forbidden than the things permitted; precisely because most things are permitted, and only a few things are forbidden.
ignorant fraud wells
The ignorant pronounce it Frood To cavil or applaud The well-informed pronounce it Froyd But I pronounce it Fraud.
men poor poor-man
Only poor men get hanged.
mind addresses wanted
But I was frightfully fond of the universe and wanted to address it by a diminutive. I often did so; and it never seemed to mind.
cities apples evil
In the fairy tale, an incomprehensible happiness rests upon an incomprehensible condition. A box is opened and all evils fly out. A word is forgotten and cities perish. A lamp is lit and love flies away. An apple is eaten and the hope of God is gone.
sunset oscars pay
Oscar Wilde said that sunsets were not valued because we could not pay for sunsets. But Oscar Wilde was wrong; we can pay for sunsets. We can pay for them by not being Oscar Wilde.
men evil catholic
Men do not differ much about what things they will call evils; they differ enormously about what evils they will call excusable.
christmas sex wine
If a man called Christmas Day a mere hypocritical excuse for drunkenness and gluttony, that would be false, but it would have a fact hidden in it somewhere. But when Bernard Shaw says the Christmas Day is only a conspiracy kept up by poulterers and wine merchants from strictly business motives, then he says something which is not so much false as startling and arrestingly foolish. He might as well say that the two sexes were invented by jewellers who wanted to sell wedding rings.
nature inspiration world
The world will never starve for want of wonders; but only for want of wonder.
class
The classes that wash most are those that work least.
inspiring travel home
There are two ways of getting home; and one of them is to stay there.