When modern sociologists talk of the necessity of accommodating one's self to the trend of the time, they forget that the trend of the time at its best consists entirely of people who will not accommodate themselves to anything. At its worst it consists of many millions of frightened creatures all accommodating themselves to a trend that is not there. And that is becoming more and more the situation... Every man speaks of public opinion, and means by public opinion, public opinion minus his opinion.

— G.K. Chesterton

When Nietzsche says, "A new commandment I give to you, be hard" he is really saying, "A new commandment I give to you, be dead." Sensibility is the definition of life.

— G.K. Chesterton

When the businessman rebukes the idealism of his office-boy, it is commonly in some such speech as this: "Ah, yes, when one is young, one has these ideals in the abstract and these castles in the air; but in middle age they all break up like clouds, and one comes down to a belief in practical politics, to using the machinery one has and getting on with the world as it is." Thus, at least, venerable and philanthropic old men now in their honored graves used to talk to me when I was a boy. But since then I have grown up and have discovered that these philanthropic old men were telling lies. What has really happened is exactly the opposite of what they said would happen. They said that I should lose my ideals and begin to believe in the methods of practical politicians. Now, I have not lost my ideals in the least; my faith in fundamentals is exactly what it always was. What I have lost is my old childlike faith in practical politics. I am still as much concerned as ever about the Battle of Armageddon; but I am not so much concerned about the General Election. As a babe I leapt up on my mother's knee at the mere mention of it. No; the vision is always solid and reliable. The vision is always a fact. It is the reality that is often a fraud. As much as I ever did, more than I ever did, I believe in Liberalism. But there was a rosy time of innocence when I believed in Liberals.

— G.K. Chesterton

While most science moves in a sort of curve, being constantly corrected by new evidence, this science flies off into space in a straight line uncorrected by anything. But the habit of forming conclusions, as they can really be formed in more fruitful fields, is so fixed in the scientific mind that it cannot resist talking like this. It talks about the idea suggested by one scrap of bone as if it were something like the airplane which is constructed at last out of whole scrapheaps of scraps of metal. The trouble with the professor of the prehistoric is that he cannot scrap his scrap. The marvelous and triumphant airplane is made out of a hundred mistakes. The student of origins can only make one mistake and stick to it.

— G.K. Chesterton

Who would condescend to strike down the mere things that he does notifier? Who would debase himself to be merely brave, like any common prizefighter? Who would stoop to be fearless--like a tree? Fight teething that you fear. You remember the old tale of the English clergyman who gave the last rites to the brigand of Sicily, and how on his death-bed the great robber said, 'I can give you no money, but I can give you advice for a lifetime: your thumb on the blade, and strike upwards.' So I say to you, strike upwards, if you strike at the stars.

— G.K. Chesterton

Without education, we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously.

— G.K. Chesterton

You are my only friend in the world, and I want to talk to you. Or, perhaps, be silent with you.

— G.K. Chesterton

You don't expect me," he said, "to revolutionize society on this lawn?" Syme looked straight into his eyes and smiled sweetly." No, I don't," he said; "but I suppose that if you were serious about your anarchism, that is exactly what you would do.

— G.K. Chesterton

You say grace before meals. I say grace before I dip the pen in the ink.

— G.K. Chesterton

You've got that eternal idiotic idea that if anarchy came it would come from the poor. Why should it? The poor have been rebels, but they have never been anarchists; they have more interest than anyone else in there being some decent government. The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all. Aristocrats were always anarchists

— G.K. Chesterton