I only say that at certain strange epochs it is necessary to have another kind of priests, called poets, actually to remind men that they are not dead yet.
I feel grateful for the slight sprain which has introduced this mysterious and fascinating division between one of my feet and the other. The way to love anything is to realise that it might be lost....
He walked on the Embankment once under a dark red sunset. The red river reflected the red sky, and they both reflected his anger. The sky, indeed, was so swarthy, and the light on the river relatively...
Government has become ungovernable; that is, it cannot leave off governing. Law has become lawless; that is, it cannot see where laws should stop. The chief feature of our time is the meekness of the...
For with any recovery from morbidity there must go a certain healthy humiliation. There comes a certain point in such conditions when only three things are possible: first a perpetuation of Satanic pr...
Fiction means the common things as seen by the uncommon people. Fairy tales mean the uncommon things as seen by the common people.
And he set to rhyme his ale-measures,And he sang aloud his laws,Because of the joy of giants,The joy without a cause.
According to most philosophers, God in making the world enslaved it. According to Christianity, in making it, He set it free. God had written, not so much a poem, but rather a play; a play he had plan...
Men of science offer us health, an obvious benefit; it is only afterwards that we discover that by health, they mean bodily slavery and spiritual tedium.
The pessimists believe that the cosmos is a clock that is running down; the progressives believe it is a clock that they themselves are winding up. But I happen to believe that the world is what we ch...
To complain that I could only be married once was like complaining that I had only been born once.
Yes, he said in a voice indescribable, you are right. I am afraid of him. Therefore I swear by God that I will seek out this man whom I fear until I find him, and strike him on the mouth. If heaven we...
Who are you?' he asked suddenly.I'm not sure,' replied the other. 'I rather think I am your long-lost brother.'
Until we realize that things might not be we cannot realize that things are.
To hurry through one’s leisure is the most unbusiness-like of actions.
To become a Catholic is not to leave off thinking, but to learn how to think.
There was a short railway official travelling up to the terminus, three fairly short market-gardeners picked up two stations afterwards, one very short widow lady going up from a small Essex town, and...
There nearly always is method in madness. It's what drives men mad, being methodical. And he never goes on sitting there after sunset, with the whole place getting dark.
There are two ways of getting home; and one of them is to stay there. The other is to walk round the whole world till we come back to the same place ...
There are no rationalists. We all believe fairy-tales, and live in them.