“We cannot be content with the vague modern phrase that every sentiment must be tolerated so long as it is sincere. Sincerity is a palliation of partly evil things: but it is an aggravation of entirely evil things. That a man is a sincere Mormon makes him better; but that he is a sincere Satanist makes him worse. There are theories so vile, there are beliefs so abominable that one can only endure their existence by denying their sincerity. Sincerity in these cases has no moral value. It amounts to no more than saying that a cannibal sincerely enjoys boiled missionary, or that Mrs. Brownrigg sincerely tried to hurt her apprentices. Those who talk of ‘tolerating all opinions’ are very provincial bigots who are only familiar with one opinion. There are opinions which are in the literal and legal sense intolerable. Otherwise we are saying that two blacks make a white; that one who has acted wickedly is excused if he has thought wickedly too.”

G.K. Chesterton quoted by Mark Pilon in “News With Views” (without further attribution) in Gilbert: The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 27 #2 (November/December 2023)

“Clearness is the first essential”.

Quintilian’s Institutio Oratoria according to Will Durant Caesar and Christ [though entering it I would prefer “Clarity”]

“Work is the rent you pay for the room you occupy on Earth”

One of the late Queen Mother’s sayings, much quoted in the royal family, according to the Ottawa Citizen July 1, 1999

“Men do not differ much about what things they will call evils; they differ enormously about what evils they will call excusable.”

G.K. Chesterton in Illustrated London News Oct. 23, 1909, quoted in “Evil and Other Evils” in Gilbert: The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 27 #6 (July-August 2024)

“I run like the winded.”

Emailed by a friend without attribution

“Theoretically, I suppose, everyone would like to be freed from worries. But nobody in the world would always like to be freed from worrying occupations. … The truth is the other way. If we are not interested, why on earth should we be worried? Women are worried about housekeeping, but those that are most interested are the most worried. Women are still more worried about their husbands and their children. And I suppose if we strangled the children and poleaxed the husbands it would leave women free for higher culture. That is, it would leave them free to begin to worry about that. For women would worry about higher culture as much as they worry about everything else.”

G.K. Chesterton quoted without further attribution in Mark Pilon “News With Views” in Gilbert! The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 27 #4 (March/April 2024)

“There is no more remarkable psychological element in history than the way in which a period can suddenly become unintelligible... To the early Victorian period we have in a moment lost the key: the Crystal Palace is the temple of a forgotten creed. The thing always happens sharply...”

G.K. Chesterton’s 1904 biography of G.F. Watts, quoted in Michael Coren Gilbert: The Man Who Was G.K. Chesterton

“Democracy as a failure is better than Dictatorship as a success.”

G.K. Chesterton quoted without further attribution by Dale Ahlquist in Gilbert! The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 27 #4 (March/April 2024)