Women prefer to talk in twos, while men prefer to talk in threes.
— Gilbert K. Chesterton
New roads; new ruts.
Some men never feel small, but these are the few men who are.
We are justified in enforcing good morals, for they belong to all mankind; but we are not justified in enforcing good manners, for good manners always mean our own manners.
A woman uses her intelligence to find reasons to support her intuition.
Marriage is an adventure, like going to war.
True contentment is a thing as active as agriculture. It is the power of getting out of any situation all that there is in it. It is arduous and it is rare.
The perplexity of life arises from there being too many interesting things in it for us to be interested properly in any of them.
All architecture is great architecture after sunset; perhaps architecture is really a nocturnal art, like the art of fireworks.
Experience which was once claimed by the aged is now claimed exclusively by the young.
A businessman is the only man who is forever apologizing for his occupation.
White... is not a mere absence of colour; it is a shining and affirmative thing, as fierce as red, as definite as black... God paints in many colours; but He never paints so gorgeously, I had almost said so gaudily, as when He paints in white.
Never invoke the gods unless you really want them to appear. It annoys them very much.
The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.
'My country, right or wrong' is a thing no patriot would ever think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying 'My mother, drunk or sober.'
The whole order of things is as outrageous as any miracle which could presume to violate it.
There is but an inch of difference between a cushioned chamber and a padded cell.
A man does not know what he is saying until he knows what he is not saying.
If I had only one sermon to preach it would be a sermon against pride.
Half a truth is better than no politics.
Love means to love that which is unlovable; or it is no virtue at all.
Man is an exception, whatever else he is. If he is not the image of God, then he is a disease of the dust. If it is not true that a divine being fell, then we can only say that one of the animals went entirely off its head.
It is as healthy to enjoy sentiment as to enjoy jam.
Being 'contented' ought to mean in English, as it does in French, being pleased. Being content with an attic ought not to mean being unable to move from it and resigned to living in it; it ought to mean appreciating all there is in such a position.
I've searched all the parks in all the cities and found no statues of committees.
One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak.
It is not funny that anything else should fall down; only that a man should fall down. Why do we laugh? Because it is a gravely religious matter: it is the Fall of Man. Only man can be absurd: for only man can be dignified.
I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.
A stiff apology is a second insult... The injured party does not want to be compensated because he has been wronged; he wants to be healed because he has been hurt.
Journalism largely consists of saying 'Lord Jones is Dead' to people who never knew that Lord Jones was alive.
All conservatism is based upon the idea that if you leave things alone you leave them as they are. But you do not. If you leave a thing alone you leave it to a torrent of change.
Democracy means government by the uneducated, while aristocracy means government by the badly educated.
There is a road from the eye to heart that does not go through the intellect.
A puritan is a person who pours righteous indignation into the wrong things.
All slang is metaphor, and all metaphor is poetry.
The honest poor can sometimes forget poverty. The honest rich can never forget it.
Men always talk about the most important things to perfect strangers. In the perfect stranger we perceive man himself; the image of a God is not disguised by resemblances to an uncle or doubts of wisdom of a mustache.
Nothing is poetical if plain daylight is not poetical; and no monster should amaze us if the normal man does not amaze.
Fable is more historical than fact, because fact tells us about one man and fable tells us about a million men.
With any recovery from morbidity there must go a certain healthy humiliation.
Compromise used to mean that half a loaf was better than no bread. Among modern statesmen it really seems to mean that half a loaf; is better than a whole loaf.
Those thinkers who cannot believe in any gods often assert that the love of humanity would be in itself sufficient for them; and so, perhaps, it would, if they had it.
The cosmos is about the smallest hole that a man can hide his head in.
The paradox of courage is that a man must be a little careless of his life even in order to keep it.
Cruelty is, perhaps, the worst kid of sin. Intellectual cruelty is certainly the worst kind of cruelty.
The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because generally they are the same people.
Coincidences are spiritual puns.
The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all.
The only way to be sure of catching a train is to miss the one before it.
Drink because you are happy, but never because you are miserable.
