Shall I tell you the secret of the whole world? It is that we have only known the back of the world. We see everything from behind, and it looks brutal. That is not a tree, but the back of a tree. That is not a cloud, but the back of a cloud. Cannot you see that everything is stooping and hiding a face? If we could only get round in front--
Gilbert K. ChestertonSometimes he even embarrassed the company by phrases suggesting that there was some difference between a Liberal and a Conservative.
Gilbert K. ChestertonThere is but an inch of difference between a cushioned chamber and a padded cell.
Gilbert K. ChestertonThe great Gaels of Ireland are the men that God made mad, For all their wars are merry, and all their songs are sad.
Gilbert K. ChestertonWe do not admire, we hardly excuse, the fanatic who wrecks this world for love of the other. But what are we to say of the fanatic who wrecks this world out of hatred of the other? He sacrifices the very existence of humanity to the non-existence of God. He offers his victims not to the altar, but merely to assert the idleness of the altar and the emptiness of the throne. He is ready to ruin even that primary ethic by which all things live, for his strange and eternal vengeance upon some one who never lived at all.
Gilbert K. Chesterton