G.K. Chesterton

Evil always wins through the strength of its splendid dupes

He understood (what so many fautlessly polite people do not understand) that a stiff apology is a second insult. He understood that the injured party does not want to be compensated because he has been wronged

There are no words to express the abyss between isolation and having one ally. It may be conceded to the mathematician that four is twice two. But two is not twice one

The things said most confidently by advanced persons to crowded audiences are generally those opposite to the fact

Truth must necessarily be stranger than fiction

We are in this fairyland on sufferance

We talk of wild animals but man is the only wild animal. It is man that has broken out. All other animals are tame animals

The boldest plans for the future invoke the authority of the past

The criminal is the creative artist

Christendom has had a series of revolutions and in each one of them Christianity has died. Christianity has died many times and risen again

Most modern freedom is at root fear. It is not so much that we are too bold to endure rules

A good novel tells us the truth about its hero

{We} have not to crown the exceptional man who knows he can rule

You say you are a poet of law

Oscar Wilde said that sunsets were not valued because we could not pay for sunsets. But Oscar Wilde was wrong

The modern materialists are not permitted to doubt

Free verse is like free love

The pure modernist is merely a snob