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Quotes from The Napoleon of Notting Hill — G. K. Chesterton

1874–1936 England

← All quotes by G. K. Chesterton

7 quotes

All revolutions are doctrinal — such as the French one, or the one that introduced Christianity.

The Napoleon of Notting Hill (1904)

Lord! what a strange world in which a man cannot remain unique even by taking the trouble to go mad!

The Napoleon of Notting Hill (1904)

For human beings, being children, have the childish wilfulness and the childish secrecy. And they never have from the beginning of the world done what the wise men have seen to be inevitable.

The Napoleon of Notting Hill (1904)

Many clever men like you have trusted to civilization. Many clever Babylonians, many clever Egyptians, many clever men at the end of Rome. Can you tell me, in a world that is flagrant with the failures of civilisation, what there is particularly immortal about yours?

The Napoleon of Notting Hill (1904)

They then go and do something else.

The Napoleon of Notting Hill (1904)

Don't you believe people when they tell you that people sought for a sign, and believed in miracles because they were ignorant. They did it because they were wise, filthily, vilely wise—too wise to eat or sleep or put on their boots with patience.

The Napoleon of Notting Hill (1904)

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.

The Napoleon of Notting Hill (1904)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: G. K. Chesterton (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.