The Man Who Knew Too Much

The Man Who Knew Too Much

by G.K. Chesterton

A prolific and popular writer, G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) is best known as the creator of detective-priest Father Brown (even though Chesterton's mystery stories constitute only a small fraction of his writings). The eight adventures in this classic British mystery trace the activities of Horne Fisher, the man who knew too much, and his trusted friend Harold March. Although Horne's keen mind and powerful deductive gifts make him a natural sleuth, his inquiries have a way of developing moral complications. Notable for their wit and sense of wonder, these tales offer an evocative portrait of upper-crust society in pre–World War I England.

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Paperback, 156 pages

Published February 19th 2009 by Dover Publications (first published 1922)

tags: thriller, mystery thriller, audiobook, european literature, classics, crime, short stories, fiction, literature, detective, british literature, mystery

Book Quotes

“Modern intelligence won't accept anything on authority. But it will accept anything without authority.”

― G.K. Chesterton

topics: Authority, Intelligence

“You know I always liked you," said Fisher, quietly, "but I also respect you, which is not always the same thing. You may possibly guess that I like a good many people I don't respect. Perhaps it is my tragedy, perhaps it is my fault. But you are very different, and I promise you this: that I will never try to keep you as somebody to be liked, at the price of your not being respected.”

― G.K. Chesterton

“We’re all really dependent in nearly everything, and we all make a fuss about being independent in something.”

― G.K. Chesterton

“But it's my reading of human nature that a man will cheat in his trade, but not in his hobby.”

― G.K. Chesterton

“I am the man who knows too much to know anything, or, at any rate, to do anything,”

― G.K. Chesterton

“Something lay in the shadow at the foot of the ridge, as stiff as the stick of the fallen rocket; and the man who knew too much knew what is worth knowing.”

― G.K. Chesterton

“You've got to understand one of the tricks of the modern mind, a tendency that most people obey without noticing it. In the village or suburb outside there's an inn with the sign of St. George and the Dragon. Now suppose I went about telling everybody that this was only a corruption of King George and the Dragoon. Scores of people would believe it, without any inquiry, from a vague feeling that it's probable because it's prosaic. It turns something romantic and legendary into something recent and ordinary. And that somehow makes it sound rational, though it is unsupported by reason. Of course some people would have the sense to remember having seen St. George in old Italian pictures and French romances, but a good many wouldn't think about it at all. They would just swallow the skepticism because it was skepticism. Modern intelligence won't accept anything on authority. But it will accept anything without authority. That's exactly what has happened here.”

― G.K. Chesterton

“And when he became conscious of a human figure dark against the silver stream, sitting on a large boulder and looking rather like a large bird, it was perhaps with some of the premonitions proper to a man who meets the strangest friendship of his life.”

― G.K. Chesterton

“I know too much," he said. "That's what's the matter with me. That's what's the matter with all of us, and the whole show; we know too much. Too much about one another; too much about ourselves.”

― G.K. Chesterton

“There nearly always is method in madness. It's what drives men mad, being methodical. And he never goes on sitting there after sunset, with the whole place getting dark.”

― G.K. Chesterton

“All his actions had something at once ambitious and conscientious; he drank no wine, but was slightly intoxicated with words. And his face and phrases were on the front page of all the newspapers just then, because he was contesting the safe seat of Sir Francis Verner in the great by-election in the west.”

― G.K. Chesterton

“the schoolboy had something of the stolid air of a young duke doing the grand tour, while his elderly relative was reduced to the position of a courier, who nevertheless had to pay for everything like a patron.”

― G.K. Chesterton

“Gentlemen used to lie just as schoolboys lie, because they hung together and partly to help one another out.”

― G.K. Chesterton

“I've known a good many magicians myself in India—mango plant and all. But the Indian ones are all frauds, I'll swear.”

― G.K. Chesterton

“Hang it all! what is a man ashamed of nowadays?”

― G.K. Chesterton

“Everything is different in the dark,”

― G.K. Chesterton

“Nobody sees anything except in the dark," said the magician.”

― G.K. Chesterton

“He also knew a great deal about art, letters, philosophy, and general culture; about almost everything, indeed, except the world he was living in.”

― G.K. Chesterton

“Harold March was the sort of man who knows everything about politics, and nothing about politicians. He also knew a great deal about art, letters, philosophy, and general culture; about almost everything, indeed, except the world he was living in.”

― G.K. Chesterton

“Horne Fisher had in him something of the aristocrat, which is very near to the anarchist. It was characteristic of him that he turned into this dark and irregular entry as casually as into his own front door, merely thinking that it would be a short cut to the house. He made his way through the dim wood for some distance and with some difficulty, until there began to shine through the trees a level light, in lines of silver, which he did not at first understand. The next moment he had come out into the daylight at the top of a steep bank, at the bottom of which a path ran round the rim of a large ornamental lake.”

― G.K. Chesterton

G.K. Chesterton

Gilbert Keith Chesterton was one of the most influential English writers of the 20th century. His prolific and diverse output included journalism, philosophy, poetry, biography, Christian apologetics, fantasy and detective fiction.

Chesterton has been called the "prince of paradox". Time magazine, in a review of a biography of Chesterton, observed of his writing style: "Whenever possible Chesterton made his points with popular sayings, proverbs, allegories—first carefully turning them inside out.
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