Chapter 9, "Authority and the Adventurer"The last chapter has been concerned with the contention that orthodoxy is not only (as is often urged) the only safe guardian of morality or order, but is also the only logical guardian of liberty, innovation and advance.

Chapter 8, "The Romance of Orthodoxy"It is customary to complain of the bustle and strenuousness of our epoch. But in truth the chief mark of our epoch is a profound laziness and fatigue; and the fact is that the real laziness is the cause of the apparent bustle.

Chapter 7, "The Eternal Revolution"The following propositions have been urged: First, that some faith in our life is required even to improve it; second, that some dissatisfaction with things as they are is necessary even in order to be satisfied; third, that to have this necessary content and necessary discontent it is not sufficient to have the obvious equilibrium of the Stoic.

Chapter 6, "The Paradoxes of Christianity"The real trouble with this world of ours is not that it is an unreasonable world, nor even that it is a reasonable one.

Chapter 5, "The Flag of the World"When I was a boy there were two curious men running about who were called the optimist and the pessimist.

Chapter 4, "The Ethics of Elfland"When the business man rebukes the idealism of his office-boy, it is commonly in some such speech as this: "Ah, yes, when one is young, one has these ideals in the abstract and these castles in the air; but in middle age they all break up like clouds, and one comes down to a belief in practical politics, to using the machinery one has and getting on with the world as it is."

Chapter 3, "The Suicide of Thought"The phrases of the street are not only forcible but subtle: for a figure of speech can often get into a crack too small for a definition.

Chapter 2, "The Maniac"Thoroughly worldly people never understand even the world; they rely altogether on a few cynical maxims which are not true.

Chapter 1, "Introduction in Defense of Everything Else"The only possible excuse for this book is that it is an answer to a challenge.