K. Chesterton
K. Chesterton
fashion tradition
Those who leave the tradition of truth do not escape into something which we call Freedom. They only escape into something else, which we call Fashion.
fiction facts nineteenth-century
The scientific facts, which were supposed to contradict the faith in the nineteenth century, are nearly all of them regarded as unscientific fictions in the twentieth century.
people wit wells
Wit is a sword; it is meant to make people feel the point as well as see it.
running wine rivers
[Fairy tales] make rivers run with wine only to make us remember, for one wild moment, that they run with water.
law criminals problem
From the standpoint of any sane person, the present problem of capitalist concentration is not only a question of law, but of criminal law, not to mention criminal lunacy.
lying tired blessing
Pessimism is not in being tired of evil but in being tired of good. Despair does not lie in being weary of suffering, but in being weary of joy. It is when for some reason or other good things in a society no longer work that the society begins to decline; when its food does not feed, when its cures do not cure, when its blessings refuse to bless.
problem ifs solutions
You'll never find the solution if you don't see the problem.
philosophy telephones
Science must not impose any philosophy, any more than the telephone must tell us what to say.
funny travel missing
The only way to be sure of catching a train is to miss the one before it.
ignorance i-hate-you boredom
There are no uninteresting things, only uninterested people.
art funny-friend drawing
Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere.
brotherhood church world
Nobody understands the nature of the Church, or the ringing note of the creed descending from antiquity, who does not realize that the whole world once very nearly died of broadmindedness and the brotherhood of all religions.
people scandal morality
There'd be a lot less scandal if people didn't idealize sin and pose as sinners.
encouragement waiting virtue
Wait and see whether the religion of the Servile State is not in every case what I say: the encouragement of small virtues supporting capitalism, the discouragement of the huge virtues that defy it.