When some English moralists write about the importance of having character, they appear to mean only the importance of having a dull character.
Gilbert K. ChestertonThe honest poor can sometimes forget poverty. The honest rich can never forget it.
Gilbert K. ChestertonSoldiers have many faults, but they have one redeeming merit; they are never worshippers of force. Soldiers more than any other men are taught severely and systematically that might is not right. The fact is obvious. The might is in the hundred men who obey. The right (or what is held to be right) is in the one man who commands them.
Gilbert K. ChestertonI owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite.
Gilbert K. ChestertonMonotony has nothing to do with a place; monotony, either in its sensation or its infliction, is simply the quality of a person. There are no dreary sights; there are only dreary sight seers.
Gilbert K. ChestertonTradition is only democracy extended through time; it may be defined as an extension of the franchise. Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who are merely walking about. All democrats object to men being disqualified by accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by accident of death. Democracy tells us not to neglect a good man's opinion, even if he is our father.
Gilbert K. Chesterton