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they make mercy even colder than justice.
Take your wild justice or our dull legality; but in the name of Almighty God, let there be an equal lawlessness or an equal law.’
People will tell you that theories don’t matter and that logic and philosophy aren’t practical. Don’t you believe them. Reason is from God, and when things are unreasonable there is something the matter.
“There is a limit to human charity,” said Lady Outram, trembling all over. “There is,” said Father Brown dryly; “and that is the real difference between human charity and Christian charity.
it seems to me that you only pardon the sins that you don’t really think sinful. You only forgive criminals when they commit what you don’t regard as crimes, but rather as conventions. So you tolerate a conventional duel, just as you tolerate a conventional divorce. You forgive because there isn’t anything to be forgiven.”
when I tried to imagine the state of mind in which such a thing would be done, I always realized that I might have done it myself under certain mental conditions,
The worldly man, who really lives only for this world and believes in no other, whose worldly success and pleasure are all he can ever snatch out of nothingness—that is the man who will really do anything, when he is in danger of losing the whole world and saving nothing.
“Some people,” said Father Brown gravely, “undoubtedly do think that charity and humility are morbid.
“There are two ways of renouncing the devil,” he said; “and the difference is perhaps the deepest chasm in modem religion. One is to have a horror of him because he is so far off; and the other to have it because he is so near. And no virtue and vice are so much divided as those two virtues.”
It was simply a sort of popular romance, the modern substitute for mythology;
"Wouldn't it be better," said Father Brown, "if a man tried to make his home life nice inside, while he was protecting it from the things outside."
there'd be a lot less scandal if people didn't idealize sin and pose as sinners.
"How can his life be in the right, if his whole view of life is wrong? That's a modern muddle that arose because people didn't know how much views of life can differ.
Heresy always does affect morality, if it's heretical enough. I suppose a man may honestly believe that thieving isn't wrong.
because the inside of our intellect has changed, because we really have a new idea of right, we shall do things you think really wrong. And they will be very practical."
