"I can believe in the impossible, but not the improbable"

"Well,' said Tarrant, `it's refreshing to find a priest so sceptical of the supernatural as all that.'

`Not at all,' replied the priest calmly; `it's not the supernatural part I doubt. It's the natural part. I'm exactly in the position of the man who said, `I can believe the impossible, but not the improbable.'`

`That's what you call a paradox, isn't it?' asked the other.

`It's what I call common sense, properly understood,' replied Father Brown. 'It really is more natural to believe a preternatural story, that deals with things we don't understand, than a natural story that contradicts things we do understand. Tell me that the great Mr Gladstone, in his last hours, was haunted by the ghost of Parnell, and I will be agnostic about it. But tell me that Mr Gladstone, when first presented to Queen Victoria, wore his hat in her drawing--room and slapped her on the back and offered her a cigar, and I am not agnostic at all. That is not impossible; it's only incredible. But I'm much more certain it didn't happen than that Parnell's ghost didn't appear; because it violates the laws of the world I do understand. So it is with that tale of the curse. It isn't the legend that I disbelieve--it's the history.'

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The Incredulity of Father Brown (1926)