“’Truth is not only stranger, but much more blood-curdling than fiction.”
G.K. Chesterton in Illustrated London News December 31, 1921 quoted in Gilbert Magazine Vol. VIII #7 (June 2005)
“one need not be a strategist to keep out of the way of a motor-bus.”
Father Brown in G.K. Chesterton Favorite Father Brown Stories
“It is the curse of our epoch that the educated are uneducated, especially in the study of history – which is only the study of humanity. Their ignorance is less logical than the ignorance of the Dark Ages, because those ages filled the place of history with legends, which at least professed to deal with the first things, while we only fill it with news, which can only deal with the latest.”
G. K. Chesterton in Illustrated London News March 22, 1919, quoted in Gilbert Magazine April-May 2009
“Laissez faire has never been more than a slogan in defense of the proposition that every extension of state activity should be examined under a presumption of error.”
Aaron Director, quoted by Robert Bork in The Tempting of America
“Pas assez fou pour mettre le feu, mais pas assez fin pour l’éteindre."
A “Quebec saying” emailed by a friend (roughly “Not dumb (or crazy) enough to set the place on fire, but not smart (or sensible) enough to put the fire out”)
“‘Don’t be a fly on the wall,’ wise cons advise. ‘Be the wall.’”
Maclean’s April 9, 2001 [I did not record the name of the author]
“Four park benches sit on the lawn at Wesley United Church at Main and Graham, offering weary passersby a place to rest. They aren’t chained or locked. One of the slats in the benches bears the inscription: ‘Thou shalt not steal.’ But it’s probably the added inscription on the next slat that is most effective. ‘God is watching.’”
Dave Brown Best of Brown
“fools are soon parted from their votes…”
Fr. Raymond J. De Souza in Western Standard June 4, 2007