The modern world is not evil; in some ways the modern world is far too good. It is full of wild and wasted virtues. When a religious scheme is shattered (as Christianity was shattered at the Reformation), it is not merely the vices that are let loose. The vices are, indeed, let loose, and they wander and do damage. But the virtues are let loose also; and the virtues wander more wildly, and the virtues do more terrible damage. The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone.
Gilbert K. ChestertonAll literary style, especially national style, is made up of such coincidences, which are a spiritual sort of puns. That is why style is untranslatable.
Gilbert K. ChestertonThe woman does not work because the man tells her to work and she obeys. On the contrary, the woman works because she has told the man to work and he hasn’t obeyed.
Gilbert K. ChestertonMen may keep a sort of level of good, but no man has ever been able to keep on one level of evil.
Gilbert K. Chesterton