Cleanliness is not next to godliness nowadays, for cleanliness is made an essential and godliness is regarded as an offence.

I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite.

My brother, Cecil Edward Chesterton, was born when I was about five years old; and, after a brief pause, began to argue. He continued to argue to the end. I am glad to think that through all those years we never stopped arguing; and we never once quarreled. Perhaps the principal objection to a quarrel is that it interrupts an argument.

The greenhorn is the ultimate victor in everything; it is he that gets the most out of life.

Literature and fiction are two entirely different things. Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity.

The true object of human life is play.

People talk of the pathos and failure of plain women; but it is a more terrible thing that a beautiful woman may succeed in everything but womanhood.