Inspirational Quotes by G.K. Chesterton

“Providence had seen fit to make them only hands, or, like the lower creatures of the seashore, only hands and stomachs—”

“la función policiaca: saquea al pobre, y vigila cautelosamente al infortunado. En cambio, ha abandonado lo más noble de la función: el castigo de los traidores poderosos en el Estado;”

“Whatever else men have believed, they have all believed that there is something the matter with mankind. This sense of sin has made it impossible to be natural and have no clothes, just as it has made it impossible to be natural and have no laws. But”

“Y es un hecho notorio no sólo en lo moral sino también en lo estético. El ídolo americano presentaba un aspecto tan repugnante como les fue posible, de la misma manera que la imagen griega era tan hermosa como había sido posible. Buscaban el secreto del poder, obrando contra su propia naturaleza y la naturaleza de las cosas. Y parecía que aspiraban a llegar algún día a tallar en oro, granito o en la oscura madera rojiza de los bosques, un rostro que liaría romper en pedazos el mismo espejo de los ciclos. En cualquier caso, está claro que la repintada y dorada civilización de América tropical consintió sistemáticamente en los sacrificios humanos. Y, sin embargo, por lo que sé, no está nada claro que los esquimales consintieran alguna vez en los sacrificios humanos. No estaban suficientemente civilizados.”

“My poor dear Bull, I do not believe that you really have a face. I have not faith enough to believe in matter.”

“the modern return to heathenism has been a return not even to the heathen youth but rather to the heathen old age. But”

“Why I hoarded up this last wretched little rag of hope that was rent and given to the winds, how do I know! Why did you who read this , commit that not dissimilar inconsistency of your own, last year, last month, last week?”

“Something Wrong Somewhere”

“Oh, captive, bound, and double-ironed," cried the phantom, "not to know, that ages of incessant labour by immortal creatures, for this earth must pass into eternity before the good of which it is susceptible is all developed. Not to know that any Christian spirit working kindly in its little sphere, whatever it may be, will find its mortal life too short for its vast means of usefulness. Not to know that no space of regret can make amends for one life's opportunities misused! Yet such was I! Oh! such was I!”

“How can I? Tut, don’t I know?” she added in the same breath,”

“Old Clem! With a thump and a sound – Old Clem! Beat it out, beat it out – Old Clem! With a clink for the stout – Old Clem! Blow the fire, blow the fire – Old Clem! Roaring dryer, soaring higher – Old Clem!”

“She submitted to walk slowly on, with downcast eyes. He put her hand to his lips, and she quietly drew it away. ‘Will you walk beside me, Mr Wrayburn, and not touch me?’ For, his arm was already stealing round her waist. She stopped again, and gave him an earnest supplicating look. ‘Well, Lizzie, well!’ said he, in an easy way though ill at ease with himself ‘don’t be unhappy, don’t be reproachful.’ ‘I cannot help being unhappy, but I do not mean to be reproachful. Mr Wrayburn, I implore you to go away from this neighbourhood, to-morrow morning.’ ‘Lizzie, Lizzie, Lizzie!’ he remonstrated. ‘As well be reproachful as wholly unreasonable. I can’t go away.’ ‘Why not?’ ‘Faith!’ said Eugene in his airily candid manner. ‘Because you won’t let me. Mind! I don’t mean to be reproachful either. I don’t complain that you design to keep me here. But you do it, you do it.’ ‘Will you walk beside me, and not touch me;’ for, his arm was coming about her again; ‘while I speak to you very seriously, Mr Wrayburn?’ ‘I will do anything within the limits of possibility, for you, Lizzie,’ he answered with pleasant gaiety as he folded his arms. ‘See here! Napoleon Buonaparte at St Helena.’ ‘When you spoke to me as I came from the Mill the night before last,’ said Lizzie, fixing her eyes upon him with the look of supplication which troubled his better nature, ‘you told me that you were much surprised to see me, and that you were on a solitary fishing excursion. Was it true?’ ‘It was not,’ replied Eugene composedly, ‘in the least true. I came here, because I had information that I should find you here.’ ‘Can you imagine why I left London, Mr Wrayburn?’ ‘I am afraid, Lizzie,’ he openly answered, ‘that you left London to get rid of me. It is not flattering to my self-love, but I am afraid you did.’ ‘I did.’ ‘How could you be so cruel?’ ‘O Mr Wrayburn,’ she answered, suddenly breaking into tears, ‘is the cruelty on my side! O Mr Wrayburn, Mr Wrayburn, is there no cruelty in your being here to-night!’ ‘In the name of all that’s good—and that is not conjuring you in my own name, for Heaven knows I am not good’—said Eugene, ‘don’t be distressed!’ ‘What else can I be, when I know the distance and the difference between us? What else can I be, when to tell me why you came here, is to put me to shame!’ said Lizzie, covering her face. He looked at her with a real sentiment of remorseful tenderness and pity. It was not strong enough to impell him to sacrifice himself and spare her, but it was a strong emotion. ‘Lizzie! I never thought before, that there was a woman in the world who could affect me so much by saying so little. But don’t be hard in your construction of me. You don’t know what my state of mind towards you is. You don’t know how you haunt me and bewilder me. You don’t know how the cursed carelessness that is over-officious in helping me at every other turning of my life, won’t help me here. You have struck it dead, I think, and I sometimes almost wish you had struck me dead along with it.”

“These two ignorant and unpolished people had guided themselves so far on in their journey of life, by a religious sense of duty and desire to do right. Ten thousand weaknesses and absurdities might have been detected in the breasts of both; ten thousand vanities additional, possibly, in the breast of the woman. But the hard wrathful and sordid nature that had wrung as much work out of them as could be got in their best days, for as little money as could be paid to hurry on their worst, had never been so warped but that it knew their moral straightness and respected it. In its own despite, in a constant conflict with itself and them, it had done so. And this is the eternal law. For, Evil often stops short at itself and dies with the doer of it; but Good, never.”

“than any communications”

“The Shoemaker Book the Second—the Golden Thread I. Five Years Later II. A Sight”

“Plea XXI. Echoing Footsteps XXII. The Sea Still Rises XXIII. Fire Rises XXIV. Drawn to the Loadstone Rock Book”

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,”

“Tradesman XV. Knitting XVI. Still Knitting XVII. One Night XVIII. Nine Days XIX.”

“CHAPTER L THE PURSUIT AND ESCAPE”

“Our official detectives may blunder in the matter of intelligence, but never in that of courage. Gregson climbed the stair to arrest this desperate murderer with the same absolutely quiet and businesslike bearing with which he would have ascended the official staircase of Scotland Yard. The Pinkerton man had tried to push past him, but Gregson had firmly elbowed him back. London dangers were the privilege of the London force.”