Prince of Paradox

In the 15th century men cross-examined and tormented a man because he preached some immoral attitude; in the 19th century we feted and flattered Oscar Wilde because he preached such an attitude, and then broke his heart in penal servitude because he carried it out.

It is the most sincere compliment to an author to misquote him. It means that his work has become a part of our mind and not merely of our library.

Progress should mean that we are always changing the world to fit the vision; instead we are always changing the vision.

[The form GKC filled in to get an American visa] was a little like a freer form of the game called ‘Confessions’ which my friends and I invented in our youth; an examination paper containing questions like ‘If you saw a rhinoceros in the front garden, what would you do?’ One of my friends, I remember, wrote: ‘Take the pledge’.

The past is not what it was.

I do feel a certain contempt for those who charge a man with talking for effect, as if there were anything else to talk for.

If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.

Surrey is the debatable land between London and England. It is not a county but a border; it is there that South London meets and makes war on Sussex.

A real mob is sadly rare in modern politics.

The literary world is kept in a perpetual brawl about the brothers Sitwell and their distinguished sister. But if we ask what the row is all about, we find it is about poems which describe, especially at their best, the quaint quietude of Early Victorian rooms and gardens and the depths of long childish days.

Gibbon is now a classic; that is, he is quoted instead of being read.