Father Brown: The Complete Collection

by G.K. Chesterton

"What we all dread most," said the priest in a low voice, "is a maze with no centre. That is why atheism is only a nightmare."

"I don't believe in anything," answered Pendragon very briskly, with a bright eye cocked at a red tropical bird. "I'm a man of science."

"but one often has to choose between feeling a damned fool and being one."

‘Bless you, bless you,’ said Father Brown hastily. ‘God bless you all and give you more sense.’

IT is to be feared that about a hundred detective stories have begun with the discovery that an American millionaire has been murdered; an event which is, for some reason, treated as a sort of calamity.

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.’

‘It’s the first effect of not believing in God that you lose your common sense and can’t see things as they are.

At least the sea surrounded them; for in one sense their island was enclosed in another island, a large and flying island like Laputa.

He was an American type which might be more truly called an American antitype. Every nation probably has an antitype; a sort of extreme exception that proves the national rule.

Americans really respect work, rather as Europeans respect war. There is a halo of heroism about it; and he who shrinks from it is less than a man. The antitype is evident through being exceedingly rare.

He is the dandy or dude: the wealthy waster who makes a weak villain for s...

the energy to retire.

No man’s really any good till he knows how bad he is, or might be;

He was worthy to be turned into legend and not merely into news.

Devine smiled slightly; everybody had been threatened with the hospitality of John’s new car.

“Yes,” said Father Brown, still looking at the table. “I admire it very much.” Then he added with a modesty verging on nervousness: “It’s only fair to you to say that I don’t believe a word of it.”

“Hang it all,” said John Bankes restlessly, “after all, he was a convicted thief.” “Yes,” said Father Brown; “and only a convicted thief has ever in this world heard that assurance: ‘This night shalt thou be with Me in Paradise.’” Nobody seemed to know what to do with the silence that followed,

“The only thing that strikes me,” answered the little priest, “is that all the supernatural acts we have yet heard of seem to be thefts. And stealing by spiritual methods seem to me much the same as stealing by material ones.”

“I have a sympathy with the tribe,” said Father Brown. “A Philistine is only a man who is right without knowing why.”

“Beware of the man you forget,” replied his friend; “he is the one man who has you entirely at a disadvantage.

“Beware of the woman you forget, and even more,” answered the other.

“Jameson did not expect the doors to be barred,” said Father Brown. “He knew that a lot of men, especially careless men like you and your employer, could go on saying for days that something ought to be done, or might as well be done. But if you convey to a woman that something ought to be done, there is always a dreadful danger that she will suddenly do it.”

there are physical bodies on which a wound will not heal. Sir Arthur had a mind of that sort. It was as if it lacked a skin; he had a feverish vigilance of vanity; those strained eyes were open with an insomnia of egoism. Sensibility need not be selfishness.

been a journalist.” “Well,” said Father Brown, “that’s not a crime. At least not always.”

"We matter to God—God only knows why. But that's the only possible justification of the existence of policemen."

There was no man who had a more hearty and enduring appetite for doing nothing.

William Morris put it all in a sentence, 'Fellowship is heaven; and lack of fellowship is hell.'"

He was unrivalled in the true Oxford talent of saying, "No doubt you're right," so as to sound like, "No doubt you think you're right," or of merely remarking, "You think so?" so as to imply the acid addition, "You would."