“No, I don’t like work. I had rather laze about and think of all the fine things that can be done. I don’t like work, – no man does – but I like what is in the work, – the chance to find yourself. Your own reality – for yourself, not for others – what no other man can ever know. They can only see the mere show, and never can tell what it really means.”
Joseph Conrad Heart of Darkness
“Carroll’s widow, Anne... told us that G.K. Chesterton was not only fundamental to Warren Carroll’s thinking but to the philosophy on which he founded the college [Christendom College, in Fort Royal, VA, home to the world’s largest thurifer]. His two great precepts – ‘Truth exists’ and ‘The Incarnation happened’ – are engraved on his tombstone. Anne said, ‘That is distilling G.K. Chesterton into five words. Truth exists, the Incarnation happened.’”
Dale Ahlquist in Gilbert: The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 28 #6 (July/August 2025)
“People say they fear public speaking almost as much as death (which raises the question why there aren’t more horror movies with names like ‘Podium’ and ‘Dry Mouth 2’).”
Andrew Palmer “Bartleby columnist” in The Economist September 13, 2025
“A medley of spiteful mutants united behind a Leninist project can only be a wholly destructive force, and those of us who cleave to notions of Being with more permanence feel alienated and betrayed by our recently-elevated bad masters. We should not be surprised that they have the deculturalizing effect of rampaging orcs. They are barbarians, and as Chesterton said, the barbarian creates only by accident. Everything else they do is destruction.”
Christopher Jolliffe “The Attack on ANZAC Day” in Dorchester Review #32 (Vol. 15 #2 Summer 2025)
“You can’t fool all of the people all of the time, but it isn’t necessary. A majority will do.”
“SOMEBODY” quoted in “Other Suspects – V” in Gilbert: The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 28 #6 (July/August 2025)
“Only a fool fights in a burning house.”
A Klingon Proverb cited by Kang in Star Trek: The Original Series "Day of the Dove"
“One who excels in traveling leaves no wheel tracks;/ One who excels in speech makes no slips;/ One who excels in reckoning uses no counting rods;/ One who excels in shutting uses no bolts yet what he has shut cannot be opened;/ One who excels in tying uses no cords yet what he has tied cannot be undone.”
Lao Tzu I.XXVII.60
“The Hero does not regard the forest in which the dragon lurks as evil. Nor do I. I find that the world is on the whole a very jolly place, with inns and good fellowship. But try to justify the distinction: the good forest, the evil dragon; and you must have a philosophy.”
G.K. Chesterton in an interview with W.R. Titterton, in Titterton’s GKC: A Portrait (1936), the first Chesterton biography, reprinted in part at least in Gilbert: The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 28 #6 (July/August 2025)