G. K. Chesterton: Thing (page 3)

“For my part, I should be inclined to suggest that the chief object of education should be to restore simplicity. If you like to put it so, the chief object of education is not to learn things; nay, the chief object of education is to unlearn things.”

G. K. Chesterton book All Things Considered

"An Essay on Two Cities"
All Things Considered (1908)

Education , Learning , Parting

“My country, right or wrong' is a thing that no patriot would think of saying, except in a desperate case. It is like saying, 'My mother, drunk or sober.”

G. K. Chesterton book The Defendant

"A Defence of Patriotism"
The Defendant (1901)

Thinking , Country

“Fine weather encourages individualism. When the whole glittering landscape is cut out as clear as a map—indented by the blue sky as by a blue sea, then each one of us wishes to take his own way, to walk by himself along the roads of the world and conquer for himself the cities of the morning. In the sunlight a man asks for liberty, which is only the divine name for loneliness. But it is in black and bleak conditions that we learn that it is not well for man to be alone; and festivity was discovered in the darkness. Winter encourages that thing called comradeship which modern humanitarians so often seem unable to understand, but which Walt Whitman so wisely perceived to be the permanent foundation of democracy.”

G. K. Chesterton

Collected Works of G.K. Chesterton : The Illustrated London News, 1905-1907 (1986), p. 190

Democracy , Understanding , Loneliness , Learning

“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.”

G. K. Chesterton

'Well, I do believe some things, of course,' conceded Father Brown; 'and therefore, of course, I don't believe other things.' .
The Dagger with Wings (1926)

Business , Smile , Bad luck , People

“Say that a thing is so, according to the Pope or the Bible, and it will be dismissed as a superstition without examination. But preface your remark merely with "they say" or "don't you know that?"”

G. K. Chesterton

or try (and fail) to remember the name of some professor mentioned in some newspaper; and the keen rationalism of the modern mind will accept every word you say.
The Superstition of Divorce (1920)

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

G. K. Chesterton

Folly and Female Education
What's Wrong With The World (1910)

“Fiction means the common things as seen by the uncommon people. Fairy tales mean the uncommon things as seen by the common people.”

G. K. Chesterton Charles Dickens

Source: Charles Dickens (1906), Ch 4 : "The Pickwick Papers"

People

“For religion all men are equal, as all pennies are equal, because the only value in any of them is that they bear the image of the King.... It has often been said, very truly, that religion is the thing that makes the ordinary man feel extraordinary; it is an equally important truth that religion is the thing that makes the extraordinary man feel ordinary.”

G. K. Chesterton Charles Dickens

Ch 1 : "The Dickens Period"
Charles Dickens (1906)

Truth , Religion , Feeling , Men