I have no right to think for myself. I have no right to think at all.

I believe what really happens in history is this: the old man is always wrong; and the young people are always wrong about what is wrong with him. The practical form it takes is this: that, while the old man may stand by some stupid custom, the young man always attacks it with some theory that turns out to be equally stupid.

There are no uninteresting things, only uninterested people.

"Are you a devil?" "I am a man," answered Father Brown gravely; "and therefore have all devils in my heart."

Poetry is sane because it floats easily in an infinite sea; reason seeks to cross the infinite sea and so make it finite. The result is mental exhaustion. To accept everything is an exercise, to understand everything a strain.

Vigorous organisms talk not about their processes, but about their aims.

Some men never feel small, but these are the few men who are.