Quotes From "The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare" By G.k. Chesterton

This very pride in keeping his word was that he was keeping it to miscreants. It was his last triumph over these lunatics to go down into their dark room and die for something that they could not even understand. The barrel-organ seemed to give the marching tune with the energy and the mingled noises of a whole orchestra; and he could hear deep and rolling, under all the trumpets of the pride of life, the drums of the pride of death. G.k. Chesterton

An artist is identical with an anarchist, ' he cried. 'You might transpose the words anywhere. An anarchist is an artist. The man who throws a bomb is an artist, because he prefers a great moment to everything. He sees how much more valuable is one burst of blazing light, one peal of perfect thunder, than the mere common bodies of a few shapeless policemen. An artist disregards all governments, abolishes all conventions. The poet delights in disorder only. If it were not so, the most poetical thing in the world would be the Underground Railway.''So it is, ' said Mr. Syme.'Nonsense! ' said Gregory, who was very rational when any one else attempted paradox. G.k. Chesterton

Through all this ordeal his root horror had been isolation, and there are no words to express the abyss between isolation and having one ally. It may be conceded to the mathematicians that four is twice two. But two is not twice one; two is two thousand times one. That is why, in spite of a hundred disadvantages, the world will always return to monogamy. G.k. Chesterton

Do you see this lantern? cried Syme in a terrible voice.' Do you see the cross carved on it, and the flame inside? You did not make it. You did not light it. Better men than you, men who could believe and obey, twisted the entrails of iron and preserved the legend of fire. There is not a street you walk on, there is not a thread you wear, that was not made as this lantern was, by denying your philosophy of dirt and rats. You can make nothing. You can only destroy. You will destroy mankind, you will destroy the world. Let that suffice you. Yet this one old Christian lantern you shall not destroy. It shall go where your empire of apes will never have the wit to find it. . G.k. Chesterton

The moderns say we must not punish heretics. My only doubt is whether we have the right to punish anybody else. G.k. Chesterton

You don't expect me, " he said, "to revolutionize society on this lawn?" Syme looked straight into his eyes and smiled sweetly." No, I don't, " he said; "but I suppose that if you were serious about your anarchism, that is exactly what you would do. G.k. Chesterton

Moderate strength is shown in violence, supreme strength is shown in levity. G.k. Chesterton

I was waiting for you, " said Gregory. "Might I have a moment's conversation?"" Certainly. About what?" asked Syme in a sort of weak wonder. Gregory struck out with his stick at the lamp-post, and then at the tree. "About this and this, " he cried; "about order and anarchy. There is your precious order, that lean, iron lamp, ugly and barren; and there is anarchy, rich, living, reproducing itself--there is anarchy, splendid in green and gold."" All the same, " replied Syme patiently, "just at present you only see the tree by the light of the lamp. I wonder when you would ever see the lamp by the light of the tree. . G.k. Chesterton

Who would condescend to strike down the mere things that he does notfear? Who would debase himself to be merely brave, like any commonprizefighter? Who would stoop to be fearless--like a tree? Fight thething that you fear. You remember the old tale of the English clergymanwho gave the last rites to the brigand of Sicily, and how on hisdeath-bed the great robber said, 'I can give you no money, but I cangive you advice for a lifetime: your thumb on the blade, and strikeupwards.' So I say to you, strike upwards, if you strike at the stars. G.k. Chesterton

That young man with the long, auburn hair and the impudent face - that young man was not really a poet; but surely he was a poem. G.k. Chesterton

If we are calm, " replied the policeman, "it is the calm of organized resistance."" Eh?" said Syme, staring." The soldier must be calm in the thick of the battle, " pursued the policeman. "The composure of an army is the anger of a nation. G.k. Chesterton

I sat in the darkness, where there is not any created thing, and to you I was only a voice commanding valour and an unnatural virtue. You heard the voice in the dark, and you never heard it again. The sun in heaven denied it, the earth and sky denied it, all human wisdom denied it. And when I met you in the daylight I denied it myself.… But you were men. You did not forget your secret honour, though the whole cosmos turned an engine of torture to tear it out of you. I knew how near you were to hell. I know how you, Thursday, crossed swords with King Satan, and how you, Wednesday, named me in the hour without hope. . G.k. Chesterton

He seemed like a walking blasphemy, a blend of the angel and the ape. G.k. Chesterton

The most poetical thing in the world is not being sick. G.k. Chesterton

For with any recovery from morbidity there must go a certain healthy humiliation. There comes a certain point in such conditions when only three things are possible: first a perpetuation of Satanic pride, secondly tears, and third laughter. G.k. Chesterton

Then the man smiled, and his smile was a shock, for it was all on one side, going up in the right cheek and down in the left. There was nothing, rationally speaking, to scare anyone about this. Many people have this nervous trick of a crooked smile, and in many it is even attractive. But in all Syme's circumstances, with the dark dawn and the deadly errand and the loneliness on the great dripping stones, there was something unnerving in it. There was the silent river and the silent man, a man of even classic face. And there was the last nightmare touch that his smile suddenly went wrong. G.k. Chesterton

Perhaps we are both doing what we think right. But what we think right is so damned different that there can be nothing between us in the way of concession. There is nothing possible between us but honor and death. G.k. Chesterton

His soul swayed in a vertigo of moral indecision. He had only to snap the thread of a rash vow made to a villainous society, and all his life could be as open and sunny as the square beneath him. He had, on the other other hand, only to keep his antiquated honour, and be delivered inch by inch into the power of this great enemy of mankind, whose very intellect was a torture-chamber. Whenever he looked down into the square he saw the comfortable policeman, a pillar of common sense and common order. Whenever he looked back at the breakfast-table he saw the President still quietly studying him with big, unbearable eyes. G.k. Chesterton

Every trace of the passionate plumage of the cloudy sunset had been swept away, and a naked moon stood in a naked sky. The moon was so strong and full, that (by a paradox often to be noticed) it seemed like a weaker sun. It gave, not the sense of bright moonshine, but rather of a dead daylight. G.k. Chesterton

The only crime of the Government is that it governs. The unpardonable sin of the supreme power is that it is supreme. I do not curse you for being cruel. I do not curse you (though I might) for being kind. I curse you for being safe! G.k. Chesterton

You've got that eternal idiotic idea that if anarchy came it would come from the poor. Why should it? The poor have been rebels, but they have never been anarchists; they have more interest than anyone else in there being some decent government. The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all. Aristocrats were always anarchists . G.k. Chesterton

Our friend Tuesday, " said the President in a deep voice at once of quietude and volume, "our friend Tuesday doesn't seem to grasp the idea. He dresses up like a gentleman, but he seems to be too great a soul to behave like one. He insists on the ways of the stage conspirator. Now if a gentleman goes about London in a top hat and a frock-coat, no one need know that he is an anarchist. But if a gentleman puts on a top hat and a frock-coat, and then goes about on his hands and knees – well, he may attract attention. That's what Brother Gogol does. He goes about on his hands and knees with such inexhaustible diplomacy, that by this time he finds it quite difficult to walk upright."" I am not good at goncealment, " said Gogol sulkily, with a thick foreign accent; "I am not ashamed of the cause."" Yes you are, my boy, and so is the cause of you, " said the President good-naturedly. "You hide as much as anybody; but you can't do it, you see, you're such an ass! You try to combine two inconsistent methods. When a householder finds a man under his bed, he will probably pause to note the circumstance. But if he finds a man under his bed in a top hat, you will agree with me, my dear Tuesday, that he is not likely ever to forget it. Now when you were found under Admiral Biffin's bed–"" I am not good at deception, " said Tuesday gloomily, flushing." Right, my boy, right, " said the President with a ponderous heartiness, "you aren't good at anything. G.k. Chesterton

Naturally, therefore, these people talk about 'a happy time coming'; 'the paradise of the future'; 'mankind freed from the bondage of vice and the bondage of virtue', and so on. And so also the men of the inner circle speak – the sacred priesthood. They also speak to applauding crowds of the happiness of the future, and of mankind freed at last. But in their mouths" – and the policeman lowered his voice – "in their mouths these happy phrases have a horrible meaning. They are under no illusions; they are too intellectual to think that man upon this earth can ever be quite free of original sin and the struggle. And they mean death. When they say that mankind shall be free at last, they mean that mankind shall commit suicide. When they talk of a paradise without right or wrong, they mean the grave. They have but two objects, to destroy first humanity and then themselves. That is why they throw bombs instead of firing pistols. The innocent rank and file are disappointed because the bomb has not killed the king; but the high-priesthood are happy because it has killed somebody. G.k. Chesterton

Oh, most unhappy man, ' he cried, 'try to be happy! You have red hair like your sister.' My red hair, like red flames, shall burn up the world, ' said Gregory. G.k. Chesterton