It has been often said, very truly, that

religion is the thing that makes the

ordinary man feel extraordinary;
it is an equally important truth that
religion is the thing that makes the
extraordinary man feel ordinary.

Most modern freedom is at root
fear. It is not so much that we are
too bold to endure rules;





it is rather that we are too timid to
endure responsibilities.

The modern world is full of the old Christian
virtues gone mad.
The virtues have gone mad because
they have been isolated from each other
and are wandering alone.
Thus some scientists care for truth;
and their truth is pitiless.
Thus some humanitarians only care for pity;
and their pity (I am sorry to say)
is often untruthful.

Progress should mean that we are
always changing the world to fit the
vision...
instead we are always changing
the vision.

In truth, there are only
two kinds of people;
those who accept dogma
and know it,
and those who accept dogma
and don't know it.



The most extraordinary thing
in the world is an ordinary man
and an ordinary woman
and their ordinary children.

In anything that does cover
the whole of your life - in
your philosophy and your
religion - you must have
mirth. If you do not have
mirth you will certainly have
madness.

Education is the period during
which you are being instructed
by somebody you do not know,
about something you do not
want to know.

The whole secret of mysticism is
this: that man can understand
everything by the help of
something he cannot understand.

In the glad old days, before the
rise of modern morbidities...it
used to be thought a
disadvantage to be
misunderstood.

Meaninglessness does not
come from being weary of
pain.

Meaninglessness comes from
being weary of pleasure.

But the new rebel is a skeptic, and will not
entirely trust anything. He has no loyalty;
therefore he can never be really a
revolutionist. And the fact that he doubts
everything really gets in his way when he
wants to denounce anything. For all
denunciation implies a moral doctrine of
some kind; and the modern revolutionist
doubts not only the institution he denounces,
but the doctrine by which he denounces it.

When Bernard Shaw says the
Christmas Day is only a conspiracy
kept up by poulterers and wine
merchants from strictly business
motives, then he says something
which is not so much false as
startling and arrestingly foolish. He
might as well say that the two sexes
were invented by jewellers who
wanted to sell wedding rings.

A madman is not someone
who has lost his reason but
someone who has lost
everything but his reason.

The man who lives in a small
community lives in a much larger
world. He knows much more of
the fierce variety and
uncompromising divergences of
menIn a large community, we
can choose our companions. In a
small community, our
companions are chosen for us.

If you argue with a madman, it is
extremely probable that you will
get the worst of it; for in many
ways his mind moves all the
quicker for not being delayed by
the things that go with good
judgment.

Tradition means giving votes to the most
obscure of classes, our ancestors. It is the
democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses
to submit to the small and arrogant
oligarchy of those who merely happen to
be walking about. All democrats object to
men being disqualified by the accident of
birth; tradition objects to their being
disqualified by the accident of death.

Women are the only realists;
their whole object in life is
to pit their realism against
the extravagant, excessive,
and occasionally drunken
idealism of men.