Inspirational Quotes by G.K. Chesterton

“Thieves and thief-takers hung in dead rapture on his words, and shrank when a hair of his eyebrows turned in their direction. Which side he was on, I couldn't make out., for he seemed to me to be grinding the whole place on a mill; I only know that when I stole a tiptoe, he was not on the side of bench; for he was making the legs of the old gentleman who presided quite convulsive under the table , by his denunciations of his conduct as the representative of British law and justice in that chair that day.”

“I am a man, and therefore have all devils in my heart.”

“I caught him, with an unseen hook and an invisible line which is long enough to let him wander to the ends of the world, and still to bring him back with a twitch upon the thread.”

“CHAPTER L THE PURSUIT AND ESCAPE”

“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.”

“APPENDIX A PREFACE TO THE CHEAP EDITION (1858)”

“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,”

“men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.”

“old chap.”

“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.”

“I T WAS THE BEST OF TIMES, IT WAS THE WORST OF TIMES, IT WAS THE AGE OF wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—”

“The Knitting Done XV. The Footsteps Die Out For Ever Book the First—Recalled to Life”

“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?”

“You are the American aloe of the human race, my dear Chiv,' said Mr Tigg, 'which only blooms once in a hundred years!”

“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.”