..there is certainly something amusing in the picture of the rich and powerful peering down into the abyss and drooping tears over the poor specimens that make up the populace, while by far the greater part of the populace is remarking more and more what uncommonly poor specimens are looking down at them.

quoted in The Century Magazine, volume 85 (November, 1912, To April, 1913)

The theory of a complete change of standards in human history does not merely deprive us of the pleasure of honouring our fathers; it deprives us even of the more modern and aristocratic pleasure of despising them.

-Orthodoxy (1908)

"Free love is the direct enemy of freedom. It is the most obvious of all the bribes that can be offered by slavery."

Free love is the direct enemy of freedom. It is the most obvious of all the bribes that can be offered by slavery. In servile societies a vast amount of sexual laxity can go on in practice, and even in theory...the new Servile State would settle down into the sleepy resignation of the old Servile State; the old pagan repose in slavery, as it was before Christianity came to trouble and perplex the world with ideals of liberty and chivalry. One of the conveniences of that pagan world is that, below a certain level of society, nobody really need bother about pedigree or paternity at all. A new world began when slaves began to stand on their dignity as virgin martyrs. Christendom is the civilization that such martyrs made; and slavery is its returning enemy. But of all the bribes that the old pagan slavery can offer, this luxury and laxity is the strongest; nor do I deny that the influences desiring the degradation of human dignity have here chosen their instrument well.

-Fancies Versus Fads (1923)

"Bad men are almost without exception conceited, but they are commonly conceited of their defects."

Bad men are almost without exception conceited, but they are commonly conceited of their defects.

-Robert Browning (1903)

We scarcely ever find in Browning a defence of those obvious and easily defended publicans and sinners whose mingled virtues and vices are the stuff of romance and melodrama—the generous rake, the kindly drunkard, the strong man too great for parochial morals. He was in a yet more solitary sense the friend of the outcast. He took in the sinners whom even sinners cast out. He went with the hypocrite and had mercy on the Pharisee.

-Robert Browning (1903)

Sinclair Lewis and GKC

[Chesterton] refused to follow Sinclair Lewis's elitist "Henry Jamesianism" and despise Main Street, but when Chesterton met Lewis at Marshall Field's State Street store in the rare book department, they liked one another....The writers sat down to talk books....Then someone suggested that they write a play together, an idea Chesterton happily agreed to...Lewis named their play "Mary, Queen of Scotch," and Chesterton said that if he wrote the first act it must be a detective play about a mysterious murder: "There's nothing like a nice murder...to get real human interest into the play..." He said Lewis could arrive at the solution and write the happy ending to a plot which he sketched out to be the story of "an American ex-distiller from Peoria found dead in his hotel, hit on the head with a quart bottle."

-The Outline of Sanity: A Life of G.K. Chesterton, Alzina Stone Dale (1982)

"...what is the matter with Mr. Blatchford and his school is that they are not sceptical enough. For the really bold questions we have to go back to the Christian Fathers."

I have said it before, but it cannot be too often repeated, that what is the matter with Mr. Blatchford and his school is that they are not sceptical enough. For the really bold questions we have to go back to the Christian Fathers.

For example, Mr. Blatchford, in God and My Neighbour, does me the honour to quote from me as follows: “Mr. G.K. Chesterton, in defending Christianity, said, ‘Christianity has committed crimes at which the sun might sicken in Heaven, and no one can refute the statement.’ ” I did say this, and I say it again, but I said something else. I said that every great and useful institution had committed such crimes. And no one can refute that statement.

And why has every great institution been criminal? It is not enough to say “Christians persecuted; down with Christianity,” any more than it is enough to say, “A Confucian stole my hair-brush; down with Confucianism.” We want to know whether the reason for which the Confucian stole the hair-brush was a reason peculiar to the Confucians or a reason common to many other men.

It is obvious that the Christian’s reason for torturing was a reason common to hosts of other men; it was simply the fact that he held his views strongly and tried unscrupulously to make them prevail. Any other man might hold any other views strongly and try unscrupulously to make them prevail. And when we look at the facts we find, as I say, that millions of other men do, and have done so from the beginning of the world....

If only Mr. Blatchford would ask the real question. It is not, “Why is Christianity so bad when it claims to be so good? The real question is, “Why are all human things so bad when they claim to be so good?” Why is not the most noble scheme a guarantee against corruption? If [Blatchford] will boldly pursue this question, will really leave delusions behind and walk across the godless waste, alone, he will come at last to a strange place. His sceptical pilgrimage will end at a place where Christianity begins.

Chrisitanity begins with the wickedness of the Inquisition. Only it adds the wickedness of the English Liberals, Tories, Socialists, and county magistrates. It begins with a strange thing running across human history. This it calls Sin, or the Fall of Man.

If ever I wish to expound it further, Mr. Blatchford’s list of Christian crimes will be a most valuable compilation. In brief, however, Mr. Blatchford sees the sins of historic Christianity rise before him like a great tower. It is a star-defying Tower of Babel, lifting itself alone into the sky, affronting God in Heaven. Let him climb up it for a few years. When he is near to its tremendous top, he will find that it is one of the nine hundred and ninety-nine columns which support the pedestal of the ancient Christian philosophy.

-"The Eternal Heroism of the Slums" (1904), The Blatchford Controversies

An anecdote of absentmindedness I have to laugh at.... :-)

The Chesterton's own maid told Mrs. Saxon Mills, to whom for a while the Chesterton flat was let, of her troubles in cleaning up after him. Especially was she worried over the bathroom. He would flood the floor, to the imminent danger of the ceiling below. So she tried to get into the room as quickly as possible after him to mop up. One day she had heard him get out of the tub and was hovering around, waiting for her moment, when a tremendous splash assailed her ears. Then came a deep groan and the words, "Dammit, I've been in here already."

-Return to Chesterton, Maisie Ward (1952)

Of the Dangers Attending Altruism on the High Seas

The following is a poem from Chesterton's first book ever published (in 1900 when he was 26), Greybeards at Play. It was a book of nonsense verse, containing, according to W.H. Auden, some of the best examples of nonsense verse in English and also some of Chesterton's own drawings. Here's my favorite poem (minus the drawings) from that book.  

"A false film might be refuted in a hundred books, without much affecting the million dupes who had never read the books but only seen the film."

...a certain privilege almost analogous to monopoly...belongs of necessity to things like the theatre and the cinema...If a man is repelled by one book, he can shut it and open another; but he cannot shut up a theatre in which he finds a show repulsive, nor instantly order one of a thousand other theatres to suit his taste. There are a limited number of theatres; and even to cinemas there is some limit. Hence there is a real danger of historical falsehood being popularised through the film, because there is not the normal chance of one film being corrected by another film. When a book appears displaying a doubtful portrait of Queen Elizabeth, it will generally be found that about six other historical students are moved to publish about six other versions of Queen Elizabeth at the same moment...But few of us are in a  position to pay the money required to stage a complete and elaborately presented alternative film-version of Disraeli. The fiction on the film, the partisan version in the movie-lay, will go uncontradicted and even uncriticised, in a way in which few provocative books can really go uncontradicted and uncriticised. There will be no opportunity of meeting it on its own large battlefield of expansive scenario and multitudinous repetition. And most of those who are affected by it will know or care very little about its being brought to book by other critics and critical methods...A false film might be refuted in a hundred books, without much affecting the million dupes who had never read the books but only seen the film...provincial prejudice of this kind is frightfully dangerous...

-January 5, 1935, Illustrated London News

"The difficulty of disbelieving in democracy is that there is nothing else to believe in."

The difficulty of believing in democracy is that it is so hard to believe-- like God and most other good things. The difficulty of disbelieving in democracy is that there is nothing else to believe in. I mean there is nothing else on earth or in earthly politics. Unless an aristocracy is selected by gods, it must be selected by men. It may be negatively and passively permitted, but either heaven or humanity must permit it; otherwise it has no more moral authority than a lucky pickpocket. It is babytalk to talk about "Supermen" or "Nature's Aristocracy" or "The Wise Few." "The Wise Few" must be either those whom others think wise--who are often fools; or those who think themselves wise--who are always fools.

-Divorce Versus Democracy (1916)

"In our friends the richness of life is proved to us by what we have gained; in the faces in the street the richness of life is proved to us by the hint of what we have lost."

The love of humanity is a thing supposed to be professed only by vulgar and officious philanthropists, or by saints of a superhuman detachment and universality. As a matter of fact, love of humanity is the commonest and most natural of the feelings of a fresh nature, and almost every one has felt it alight capriciously upon him when looking at a crowded park or a room full of dancers. The love of those whom we do not know is quite as eternal a sentiment as the love of those whom we do know. In our friends the richness of life is proved to us by what we have gained; in the faces in the street the richness of life is proved to us by the hint of what we have lost.

-Robert Browning (1903)

"But now I really was happy, for I had learnt that man is a monstrosity."

I had often called myself an optimist, to avoid the too evident blasphemy of pessimism. But all the optimism of the age had been false and disheartening for this reason, that it had always been trying to prove that we fit in to the world. The Christian optimism is based on the fact that we do not fit in to the world. I had tried to be happy by telling myself that man is an animal, like any other which sought its meat from God. But now I really was happy, for I had learnt that man is a monstrosity. I had been right in feeling all things as odd, for I myself was at once worse and better than all things. The optimist's pleasure was prosaic, for it dwelt on the naturalness of everything; the Christian pleasure was poetic, for it dwelt on the unnaturalness of everything in the light of the supernatural. The modern philosopher had told me again and again that I was in the right place, and I had still felt depressed even in acquiescence. But I had heard that I was in the wrong place, and my soul sang for joy, like a bird in spring. The knowledge found out and illuminated forgotten chambers in the dark house of infancy. I knew now why grass had always seemed to me as queer as the green beard of a giant, and why I could feel homesick at home.

-Orthodoxy (1908)