Quotes · verified word for word in the text
G. K. Chesterton quotes
12 quotes from 3 of G. K. Chesterton’s books on this site, book by book. Each quote is copied exactly from the book’s text in this site’s reader (the Project Gutenberg e-text named under each book) and links to its passage; when this page was built, every quote was checked word for word against that text. Quotes we could not find in a book we host are not listed.
Orthodoxy
Angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly.
The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare
Shall I tell you the secret of the whole world? It is that we have only known the back of the world. We see everything from behind, and it looks brutal.
— Syme · XIV. THE SIX PHILOSOPHERS
Why does each thing on the earth war against each other thing? Why does each small thing in the world have to fight against the world itself?
— Spoken by a character · XV. THE ACCUSER
It may be conceded to the mathematicians that four is twice two. But two is not twice one; two is two thousand times one.
always be comic in a tragedy. What the deuce else can you do?
— Syme · IX. THE MAN IN SPECTACLES
Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it.
— Spoken by a character · IV. THE TALE OF A DETECTIVE
“I am more than a devil; I am a man. I can do the one thing which Satan himself cannot do—I can die,” and as the word went through his head, he heard a faint and far-off hoot, which would soon be the roar of the Paris train.
— Spoken by a character · X. THE DUEL
“Because I am afraid of him,” said Syme; “and no man should leave in the universe anything of which he is afraid.”
— Syme · VIII. THE PROFESSOR EXPLAINS
Yes, the most poetical thing, more poetical than the flowers, more poetical than the stars—the most poetical thing in the world is not being sick.
— Spoken by a character · I. THE TWO POETS OF SAFFRON PARK
Moderate strength is shown in violence, supreme strength is shown in levity.
— Bull · XIV. THE SIX PHILOSOPHERS
That young man with the long, auburn hair and the impudent face—that young man was not really a poet; but surely he was a poem.
Manalive
‘I don’t deny,’ he said, ‘that there should be priests to remind men that they will one day die. I only say that at certain strange epochs it is necessary to have another kind of priests, called poets, actually to remind men that they are not dead yet.
— Spoken by a character · II. The Two Curates; or, the Burglary Charge