Samuel Karroll > Samuel's Quotes

“The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children's games from the beginning, and will probably do it till the end, which is a nuisance for the few people who grow up. And one of the games to which it is most attached is called "Keep to-morrow dark," and which is also named (by the rustics in Shropshire, I have no doubt) "Cheat the Prophet." The players listen very carefully and respectfully to all that the clever men have to say about what is to happen in the next generation. The players then wait until all the clever men are dead, and bury them nicely. They then go and do something else. That is all. For a race of simple tastes, however, it is great fun.”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Napoleon of Notting Hill

“Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“God has a special providence for fools, drunkards, and the United States of America.”
― Otto von Bismarck

“[W]hat one has as a born Catholic is something given and accepted before it is experienced. I am only slowly coming to experience things that I have all along accepted. I suppose the fullest writing comes from what has been accepted and experienced both and that I have just not got that far yet all the time. Conviction without experience makes for harshness.”
― Flannery O'Connor, The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor

“An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“The people who really run organizations are usually found several levels down, where it is still possible to get things done.”
― Terry Pratchett, Small Gods

“Belief, he says. Belief shifts. People start out believing in the god and end up believing in the structure.”
― Terry Pratchett, Small Gods