# Quote — G. Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday

> This is a tale of those old fears, even of those emptied hells,
>
> And none but you shall understand the true thing that it tells —
>
> Of what colossal gods of shame could cow men and yet crash,
>
> Of what huge devils hid the stars, yet fell at a pistol flash.
>
> The doubts that were so plain to chase, so dreadful to withstand—
>
> Oh, who shall understand but you; yea, who shall understand?
>
> The doubts that drove us through the night as we two talked amain,
>
> And day had broken on the streets e'er it broke upon the brain.
>
> Between us, by the peace of God, such truth can now be told;
>
> Yea, there is strength in striking root and good in growing old.
>
> We have found common things at last and marriage and a creed,
>
> And I may safely write it now, and you may safely read.

- Author: [G. Chesterton](https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton.md)
- Book: [The Man Who Was Thursday](https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton/the-man-who-was-thursday.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Was_Thursday#To_Edmund_Clerihew_Bentley) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton/the-man-who-was-thursday/this-is-a-tale

## More from this book

> "A man's brain is a bomb," he cried out, loosening suddenly his strange passion and striking his own skull with violence. "My brain feels like a bomb, night and day. It must expand! It must expand! A man's brain must expand, if it breaks up the universe."
>
> "I don't want the universe broken up just yet," drawled the Marquis. "I want to do a lot of beastly things before I die. I thought of one yesterday in bed."

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton/the-man-who-was-thursday/a-mans-brain.md)

> "First of all, what is it really all about? What is it you object to? You want to abolish Government?"
>
> "To abolish God!" said Gregory, opening the eyes of a fanatic. "We do not only want to upset a few despotisms and police regulations; that sort of anarchism does exist, but it is a mere branch of the Nonconformists. We dig deeper and we blow you higher. We wish to deny all those arbitrary distinctions of vice and virtue, honour and treachery, upon which mere rebels base themselves. The silly sentimentalists of the French Revolution talked of the Rights of Man! We hate Rights as we hate Wrongs. We have abolished Right and Wrong."
>
> "And Right and Left," said Syme with a simple eagerness, "I hope you will abolish them too. They are much more troublesome to me."

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton/the-man-who-was-thursday/first-of-all.md)

> It seemed a symbol of human faith and valour that while the skies were darkening that high place of the earth was bright. The devils might have captured heaven, but they had not yet captured the cross. He had a new impulse to tear out the secret of this dancing, jumping and pursuing paralytic; and at the entrance of the court as it opened upon the Circus he turned, stick in hand, to face his pursuer.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton/the-man-who-was-thursday/it-seemed-a-symbol.md)