Inspirational Quotes by G.K. Chesterton

“My dear Watson," said he, "I cannot agree with those who rank modesty among the virtues. To the logician all things should be seen exactly as they are, and to underestimate one's self is as much a departure from truth as to exaggerate one's own powers. When I say, therefore, that Mycroft has better powers of observation than I, you may take it that I am speaking the exact and literal truth.”

“and though the merriment was rather boisterous, still it came from the heart and not from the lips; and this is the right sort of merriment, after all.”

“I assure you, my good Lestrade, that I have an excellent reason for everything that I do. You may possibly remember that you chaffed me a little, some hours ago, when the sun seemed on your side of the hedge, so you must not grudge me a little pomp and ceremony now. Might I ask you, Watson, to open that window, and then to put a match to the edge of the straw?”

“I know it is my duty, Sir,’ replied Job, with great emotion. ‘We should all try to discharge our duty, Sir, and I humbly endeavour to discharge mine, Sir; but it is a hard trial to betray a master, Sir, whose clothes you wear, and whose bread you eat, even though he is a scoundrel, Sir.”

“faces. "Perhaps I had best”

“I am very sorry to betray my master, Sir,’ said Job Trotter, applying to his eyes a pink check pocket handkerchief of about three inches square. ‘The feeling does you a great deal of honour,’ replied Mr Pickwick; ‘but it is your duty, nevertheless.’ ‘I know it is my duty, Sir,’ replied Job, with great emotion. ‘We should all try to discharge our duty, Sir, and I humbly endeavour to discharge mine, Sir; but it is a hard trial to betray a master, Sir, whose clothes you wear, and whose bread you eat, even though he is a scoundrel, Sir.”

“obtuse, Holmes,”

“Lawyers hold that there are two kinds of particularly bad witnesses, a reluctant witness, and a too-willing witness; it was Mr Winkle’s fate to figure in both characters.”

“The main thing with people of that sort," said Holmes, as we sat in the sheets of the wherry, "is never to let them think that their information can be of the slightest importance to you. If you do, they will instantly shut up like an oyster. If you listen to them under protest, as it were, you are very likely to get what you want.”

“And numerous indeed are the hearts to which Christmas brings a brief season of happiness and enjoyment.”

“Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childish days, that can recal to the old man the pleasures of his youth, and transport the sailor and the traveller, thousands of miles away, back to his own fire-side and his quiet home!”

“there is nothing more unaesthetic than a policeman”

“These sequestered nooks are the public offices of the legal profession, where writs are issued, judgments signed, declarations filed, and numerous other ingenious little machines put in motion for the torture and torment of His Majesty’s liege subjects, and the comfort and emolument of the practitioners of the law.”

“Sure, what is murder? Isn't it common enough in these parts?" "It is, indeed; but it's not for me to point out the man that is to be murdered.”

“Exactly what I myself had thought, many times. Exactly what was perfectly manifest to me at the moment. But how could I, a poor dazed village lad avoid that wonderful inconsistency into which the best and wisest of men fall everyday.”

“I said I could not deny that this was a strong point. I said it (people often do so, in such cases) like a rather reluctant concession to truth and justice; - as if I wanted to deny it!”

“Nasci em Blunderstone, Suffolk, ou “por ali”, como dizem na Escócia. Fui filho póstumo. Os olhos de meu pai estavam fechados para a luz deste mundo havia seis meses quando os meus se abriram para ele.”

“The sun—the bright sun, that brings back, not light alone, but new life, and hope, and freshness to man—burst upon the crowded city in clear and radiant glory. Through costly-coloured glass and paper-mended window, through cathedral dome and rotten crevice, it shed its equal ray. It lighted up the room where the murdered woman lay. It”

“They all gave place when the signing was done, and Little Dorrit and her husband walked out of the church alone. They paused for a moment on the steps of the portico, looking at the fresh perspective of the street in the autumn morning sun's bright rays, and then went down. Went down into a modest life of usefulness and happiness. Went down to give a mother's care, in the fulness of time, to Fanny's neglected children no less than to their own,”

“Pip, dear old chap, life is made of ever so many partings welded together, as I may say, and one man’s a blacksmith, and one’s a whitesmith, and one’s a goldsmith, and one’s a coppersmith. Diwisions among such must come, and must be met as they come. If there’s been any fault at all to-day, it’s mine. You and me is not two figures to be together in London; nor yet anywheres else but what is private, and beknown, and understood among friends. It ain’t that I am proud, but that I want to be right, as you”