People have fallen into a foolish habit of speaking of orthodoxy as something heavy, humdrum, and safe. There never was anything so perilous or so exciting as orthodoxy. It was sanity: and to be sane is more dramatic than to be mad.

I need not pause to explain that crime is not a disease. It is criminology that is a disease.

One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak.

I like the Americans for a great many reasons. I like them because even the modern thing called industrialism has not entirely destroyed in them the very ancient thing called democracy. I like them because they have a respect for work which really curbs the human tendency to snobbishness.

Customs are generally unselfish. Habits are nearly always selfish.

In Catholicism, the pint, the pipe and the Cross can all fit together.

What are we going to do?" asked the Professor. "At this moment," said Syme, with a scientific detachment, "I think we are going to smash into a lamppost.