Read & Study the Bible Online - Bible Portal
G.K. Chesterton

G.K. Chesterton


Gilbert Keith Chesterton was one of the most influential English writers of the 20th century. His prolific and diverse output included journalism, philosophy, poetry, biography, Christian apologetics, fantasy and detective fiction.

Chesterton has been called the "prince of paradox". Time magazine, in a review of a biography of Chesterton, observed of his writing style: "Whenever possible Chesterton made his points with popular sayings, proverbs, allegories—first carefully turning them inside out.
... Show more
The crowd in the street jostling the crowd in his mind, and the two crowds making a confusion, he avoided London Bridge, and turned off in the quieter direction of the Iron Bridge.
1 likes
Joy and grief were mingled in the cup; but there were no bitter tears: for even grief itself arose so softened, and clothed in such sweet and tender recollections, that it became a solemn pleasure, and lost all character of pain
topics: children , grief , pain  
1 likes
I went to school with this fellow, Lawrence Boythorn," said Mr. Jarndyce, tapping the letter as he laid it on the table, "more than five and forty years ago. He was then the most impetuous boy in the world, and he is now the most impetuous man. He was then the loudest boy in the world, and he is now the loudest man. He was then the heartiest and sturdiest boy in the world, and he is now the heartiest and sturdiest man. He is a tremendous fellow.
1 likes
I can never be your friend because of my lost tail, nor you mine because of your lost child.
1 likes
My poor girl, what is the matter?' She looked up suddenly, with reddened eyes, and with her hands suspended, in the act of pinching her neck, freshly disfigured with great scarlet blots. 'It's nothing to you what's the matter. It don't signify to any one.
1 likes
one or two other equally laudable enterprises. If I were to plead anything in mitigation of the preposterous fancy that a bad design will sometimes claim to be a good and an expressly religious design, it would be the curious coincidence that it has been brought to its climax
1 likes
When you have 50 Tale City books, burn them all and go to jail with me.
topics: jail-time  
1 likes
In ziua aceea, anul era batran de tot. Inconjurat de mustrarile si grosolaniile celor ce-l defaimau, isi urmase rabdator drumul, facadu-si constiincios datoria. Primavara, vara, toamna, iarna. Strabatuse crugul ce-i fusese harazit si acum isi culca ostenit capul, asteptand sa moara. Lipsit de nadejdi, de dorinte si de fericire, dar aducand altora multe bucurii, in ziua mortii sale el ii ruga pe oameni sa-si aduca aminte de zilele lui de truda si de ceasurile sale de suferinta si sa-l lase sa moara in pace.
1 likes
The voice of Time, ' said the Phantom, 'cries to man, Advance! Time is for his advancement and improvement; for his greater worth, his greater happiness, his better life; his progress onward to that goal within its knowledge and its view, and set there, in the period when Time and He began. Ages of darkness, wickedness, and violence, have come and gone--millions uncountable, have suffered, lived, and died-- to point the way before him. Who seeks to turn him back, or stay him on his course, arrests a mighty engine which will strike the meddler dead; and be the fiercer and the wilder, ever, for its momentary check!
1 likes
Some remote fragment of Main Line to somewhere else, there was, which was going to ruin the Money Market if it failed, and Church and State if it succeeded, and (of course), the Constitution, whether or no;
1 likes
Secondly, the Philanthropists had not the good temper of the Pugilists, and used worse language. 
1 likes
Who is Mr. Jasper?" Rosa turned aside her head in answering: "Eddy's uncle, and my music-master." "You do not love him?" "Ugh!" She put her hands up to her face, and shook with fear or horror. "You know that he loves you?" "O, don't, don't, don't!" cried Rosa, dropping on her knees, and clinging to her new resource. "Don't tell me of it! He terrifies me. He haunts my thoughts, like a dreadful ghost. I feel that I am never safe from him. I feel as if he could pass in through the wall when he is spoken of." She actually did look round, as if she dreaded to see him standing in the shadow behind her. "Try to tell me more about it, darling." "Yes, I will, I will. Because you are so strong. But hold me the while, and stay with me afterwards." "My child! You speak as if he had threatened you in some dark way." "He has never spoken to me about - that. Never." "What has he done?" "He has made a slave of me with his looks. He has forced me to understand him, without his saying a word; and he has forced me to keep silence, without his uttering a threat. When I play, he never moves his eyes from my hands. When I sing, he never moves his eyes from my lips. When he corrects me, and strikes a note, or a chord, or plays a passage, he himself is in the sounds, whispering that he pursues me as a lover, and commanding me to keep his secret. I avoid his eyes, but he forces me to see them without looking at them. Even when a glaze comes over them (which is sometimes the case), and he seems to wander away into a frightful sort of dream in which he threatens most, he obliges me to know it, and to know that he is sitting close at my side, more terrible to me than ever." "What is this imagined threatening, pretty one? What is threatened?" "I don't know. I have never even dared to think or wonder what it is." "And was this all, to-night?" "This was all; except that to-night when he watched my lips so closely as I was singing, besides feeling terrified I felt ashamed and passionately hurt. It was as if he kissed me, and I couldn't bear it, but cried out. You must never breathe this to any one. Eddy is devoted to him. But you said to-night that you would not be afraid of him, under any circumstances, and that gives me - who am so much afraid of him - courage to tell only you. Hold me! Stay with me! I am too frightened to be left by myself.
topics: fear , love  
1 likes
Según su criterio, era necesario suprimir las fuerzas armadas, pero para llegar a esto se imponía antes un juicio militar a todo el Estado Mayor, que no había cumplido con su deber, y pasarlos por las armas. Había que abolir la guerra, pero declarándola antes encarnizadamente a aquellos que la fomentaban. Había que derogar la pena capital, pero antes borrar de la faz de la tierra a todos los legisladores y jueces que sostuvieran opinión contraría. Era menester establecer la concordia universal, pero para ello había que exterminar a cuantos no quisieran ponerla en práctica.
1 likes
Stony One replies, in a general way, ‘All right.  Everybody knows where to find Durdles, when he’s wanted.’  Which, if not strictly true, is approximately so, if taken to express that Durdles may always be found in a state of vagabondage somewhere.
1 likes
There was a curious mixture in the boy, of uncompleted savagery, and uncompleted civilization.
1 likes
Imagine my not letting him sink, as I was his fag!’ said Mr. Tartar. 
1 likes
Yes, sir!’ from one half.  ‘No, sir!’ from the other.   ‘Of
1 likes
Always something in the nature of a Boil upon the face of society, Mr. Honeythunder expanded into an inflammatory Wen in Minor Canon Corner. Though it was not literally true, as was facetiously charged against him by public unbelievers, that he called aloud to his fellow-creatures: ‘Curse your souls and bodies, come here and be blessed!’ still his philanthropy was of that gunpowderous sort that the difference between it and animosity was hard to determine. You were to abolish military force, but you were first to bring all commanding officers who had done their duty, to trial by court-martial for that offence, and shoot them. You were to abolish war, but were to make converts by making war upon them, and charging them with loving war as the apple of their eye. You were to have no capital punishment, but were first to sweep off the face of the earth all legislators, jurists, and judges, who were of the contrary opinion. You were to have universal concord, and were to get it by eliminating all the people who wouldn’t, or conscientiously couldn’t, be concordant. You were to love your brother as yourself, but after an indefinite interval of maligning him (very much as if you hated him), and calling him all manner of names.
1 likes
O!  Better to have no home in which to lay his head, than to have a home and dread to go to it, through such a cause. 
1 likes
When the French come over, May we meet them at Dover!
1 likes

Group of Brands