“Never get mad at anybody for knowing more than you do. It’s not their fault.”
“Elizabethtown (KENTUCKY) News” quoted in “Other Suspects I Quotes not by GKC” in Gilbert: the Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 28 #2 (Nov./Dec. 2024)
In my bonus contribution to the National Post “What we’ve lost” series I try to retrieve the bar of soap once used to wash out the mouths of people who swore in the wrong place or at the wrong time, and the self-control that went with it.
“[W]e are learning to do a great many clever things. Unless we are much mistaken the next great task will be to learn not to do them.”
G.K. Chesterton quoted in “News With Views” “compiled by Mark Pilon” in Gilbert: The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 28 #6 (July/August 2025) [the specific context is using CRISPR to bring back extinct animals].
“It was the glory of Roman law that it protected the individual against the state.”
Will Durant Caesar and Christ [although he describes frankly the considerable degree of legal and constitutional chaos that existed, including Hadrian trying to draw it all into a Perpetual Edict only the Emperor could change]
“We are not very credulous about statistics. It was in some ways unfortunate when men found they could tell lies in Arabic numerals as well as in Roman letters.”
G.K. Chesterton in G.K.’s Weekly May 12, 1928, quoted in “Statistics” in Gilbert: The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 28 #6 (July/August 2025)
“The gods do not protect fools. Fools are protected by more capable fools.”
Larry Niven Ringworld [it also turned up in “Random Foolish Quotations” in Gilbert Magazine Vol. 7 # 7 (6/04)]
“If someone asks him how he [extremely productive historian Niall Ferguson] manages his time, he says, ‘I get up in the morning and work. My puzzle is with people who spend 10 years not producing a book. What do they do?’”
National Post March 14, 2001
“This Spring, Minnesota Representative Pam Altendorf posted a video on X showing another display at the State Capitol, a plaque with the following message. ‘The Democratic Coalition of Satan Worshippers thanks Gov. Tim Walz for not standing in the way of spreading Satanism at the State Capitol Building. Satan has a special place for you.’ Indeed. GKC: ‘It has always been a definite mark of diabolism that its language was splendid and pure. For the heart of all evil religion is fear. And the sacrament of fear is flattery. For this reason the old pagans called the Furies the Gracious Ones. For this reason many modern peasants called their goblins good people because they believe that they are bad people. It is the common-sense of all diabolism that if you worship Satan you worship him as God.’”
“News With Views” “compiled by Mark Pilon” in Gilbert: The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 28 #6 (July/August 2025) [and obviously GKC is Chesterton]