The Dagger with Wings Quotes

“I'm afraid I'm a practical man,' said the doctor with gruff humour, 'and I don't bother much about religion and philosophy.'
'You'll never be a practical man till you do,' said Father Brown. 'Look here, doctor; you know me pretty well; I think you know I'm not a bigot. You know I know there are all sorts in all religions; good men in bad ones and bad men in good ones.”
― G.K. Chesterton, New Oxford Progressive English Readers 2. Dagger & Wings and Other Father Brown Stories

“You have no business to be an unbeliever. You ought to stand for all the things these stupid people call superstitions. Come now, don't you think there's a lot in those old wives' tales about luck and charms and so on, silver bullets included? What do you say about them as a Catholic?'
'I say I'm an agnostic,' replied Father Brown, smiling.
'Nonsense,' said Aylmer impatiently. 'It's your business to believe things.'
'Well, I do believe some things, of course,' conceded Father Brown; 'and therefore, of course, I don't believe other things.”
― G.K. Chesterton, New Oxford Progressive English Readers 2. Dagger & Wings and Other Father Brown Stories

“All things are from God; and above all, reason and imagination and the great gifts of the mind. They are good in themselves; and we must not altogether forget their origin even in their perversion.”
― G.K. Chesterton, New Oxford Progressive English Readers 2. Dagger & Wings and Other Father Brown Stories

“You do believe it,' he said. 'You do believe everything. We all believe everything, even when we deny everything. The denyers believe. The unbelievers believe. Don't you feel in your heart that these contradictions do not really contradict: that there is a cosmos that contains them all? The soul goes round upon a wheel of stars and all things return; perhaps Strake and I have striven in many shapes, beast against beast and bird against bird, and perhaps we shall strive for ever. But since we seek and need each other, even that eternal hatred is an eternal love. Good and evil go round in a wheel that is one thing and not many. Do you not realize in your heart, do you not believe behind all your beliefs, that there is but one reality and we are its shadows; and that all things are but aspects of one thing: a centre where men melt into Man and Man into God?'
'No,' said Father Brown.”
― G.K. Chesterton, New Oxford Progressive English Readers 2. Dagger & Wings and Other Father Brown Stories

“We are talking about an artist; What he makes outside him must correspond to something inside him; he can only make his effects out of some of the materials of his soul.”
― G.K. Chesterton, New Oxford Progressive English Readers 2. Dagger & Wings and Other Father Brown Stories

“He had the notion that because I am a clergyman I should believe anything. Many people have little notions of that kind.
- Father Brown”
― G.K. Chesterton, New Oxford Progressive English Readers 2. Dagger & Wings and Other Father Brown Stories