Gilbert K. Chesterton quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Gilbert K. Chesterton

Gilbert K. Chesterton Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from Gilbert K. Chesterton on Wise Famous Quotes.

It is still bad taste to be an avowed atheist. But now it is equally bad taste to be an avowed Christian.

Jokes are generally honest. Complete solemnity is always dishonest.

I am a journalist and have no earthly motives except curiosity and personal vanity.

And they that rule in England, in stately conclaves met, alas, alas for England they have no graves as yet.

[Marxism will] in a generation or so [go] into the limbo of most heresies, but meanwhile it will have poisoned the Russian Revolution.

All real democracy is an attempt like that of a jolly hostess to bring the shy people out.

If the common man in the past had a grave respect for property, it may conceivably have been because he sometimes had some of his own.

We call a man a bigot or a slave of dogma because he is a thinker who has thought thoroughly and to a definite end.

But there is good news yet to hear and fine things to be seen before we go to Paradise by way of Kensal Green.

English experience indicates that when the two great political parties agree about something it is generally wrong.

No man's really any good till he knows how bad he is, or might be ...

(Tradition) is the democracy of the dead.

The trouble with Christianity is, not that its failed, but that it's never been tried ... not that it can't remake the world, but that it's difficult.

If man is not the image of God, then he is a disease of the dust.

Progress is the mother of problems.

To be wrong, and to be carefully wrong, that is the definition of decadence.

The central idea of poetry is the idea of guessing right, like a child.

People in high life are hardened to the wants and distresses of mankind as surgeons are to their bodily pains.

Tolerance is a virtue of people who don't believe in anything anymore.

I defy anybody to say what are the rights of a citizen, if they do not include the control of his own diet in relation to his own health.

The academic mind reflects infinity, and is full of light by the simple process of being shallow and standing still.

The power which makes a man able to entertain a good impulse is the same as that which enables him to make a good gun; it is imagination.

No man can break any of the Ten Commandments. He can only break himself against them.

The doctrine of human equality reposes on this: that there is no man really clever who has not found that he is stupid.

Journalism largely consists of saying 'Lord Jones is Dead' to people who never knew that Lord Jones was alive.

When a person has found something which he prefers to life itself, he for the first time has begun to live.

Plato was right, but not quite right.

There is no better test of a man's ultimate chivalry and integrity than how he behaves when he is wrong ... A stiff apology is a second insult.

Real development is not leaving things behind, as on a road, but drawing life from them, as from a root.

Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.
Never forget that the devil fell by force of gravity.
He who has the faith has the fun.

The professional soldier gains more and more power as the general courage of a community declines.

A puritan is a person who pours righteous indignation into the wrong things.

The mind that finds its way to wild places is the poet's; but the mind that never finds its way back is the lunatic's.

Only friendliness produces friendship. And we must look far deeper into the soul of man for the thing that produces friendliness.

Marriage is a sort of poetical see-saw.

Where does a wise man kick a pebble? On the beach. Where does a wise man hide a leaf? In the forest.

Nothing is certain by uncertainty.

I've been to every park in every city and not seen a statue to a committee.

Nobody notices postmen, yet they have passions like other men.

We must be fond of the world, even in order to change it.

The present condition of fame is merely fashion.

Any one of the strange laws we suffer is a compromise between a fad and a vested interest.

Let a man walk ten miles steadily on a hot summer's day along a dusty English road, and he will soon discover why beer was invented.

It seems a pity that psychology has destroyed all our knowledge of human nature.

Atheism is too theological.

A Catholic is a person who has plucked up courage to face the incredible and inconceivable idea that something else may be wiser than he is.

Men reform a thing by removing the reality from it, and then do not know what to do with the unreality that is left.

We talk of wild animals, but the wildest animal is man.

Cruelty is, perhaps, the worst kid of sin. Intellectual cruelty is certainly the worst kind of cruelty.

A great classic means a man whom one can praise without having read.

And Noah he often said to his wife when he sat down to dine, "I don't care where the water goes if it doesn't get into the wine."

Buddhism is not a creed, it is a doubt.

America has a genius for the encouragement of fame.

I am more than a devil; I am a man. I can do the one thing which Satan himself cannot do - I can die.

There are some desires that are not desirable.

Architecture approaches nearer than any other art to being irrevocable because it is so difficult to get rid of.

There is also an insulting speech about 'one grey day just like another'. You might as well talk about one green tree like another.

The evolutionists seem to know everything about the missing link except the fact that it is missing.

I would never commit the positively anti-social action of robbing a bank, or worse still, working in one.

The human race is always trying this dodge of making everything entirely easy; but the difficulty which it shifts off one thing it shifts to another.

You never know the best about men until you know the worst about them.

The cosmos is about the smallest hole that a man can hide his head in.

Surprise is the secret of joy.

The true object of all human life is play. Earth is a task garden; heaven is a playground.

Men rush towards complexity, but they yearn towards simplicity. They try to be kings; but they dream of being shepherds.

To say that a man is an idealist is merely to say that he is a man.

If a man only likes victory he must always come late for the battle.

To downgrade the human mind is bad theology.

Puritanism was an honourable mood; it was a noble fad. In other words, it was a highly creditable mistake.

The philosophy of this world may be founded on facts, but its business is run on spiritual impressions and atmospheres.

Powerful men who have powerful passions use much of their strength in forging chains for themselves.

The vulgar man is always the most distinguished, for the very desire to be distinguished is vulgar.

When learned men begin to use their reason, then I generally discover that they haven't got any.

Mysticism keeps mankind sane. As long as you have mystery you have health; when you destroy mystery you create morbidity.

Life exists for the love of music or beautiful things.

A great curse has fallen upon modern life with the discovery of the vastness of the word Education.

Over-civilization and barbarism are within an inch of each other. And a mark of both is the power of medicine-men.

Men feel that cruelty to the poor is a kind of cruelty to animals. They never feel that it is an injustice to equals; nay it is treachery to comrades.

Large organization is loose organization. Nay, it would be almost as true to say that organization is always disorganization.

Original sin is the only doctrine that's been empirically validated by 2,000 years of human history.

All architecture is great architecture after sunset; perhaps architecture is really a nocturnal art, like the art of fireworks.

The whole order of things is as outrageous as any miracle which could presume to violate it.

They say travel broadens the mind, but you must have the mind.

Though I believe in liberalism, I find it difficult to believe in liberals.

Some men never feel small, but these are the few men who are.

We can be almost certain of being wrong about the future, if we are wrong about the past.

A third-class carriage is a community, while a first-class carriage is a place of wild hermits.

Moral issues are always terribly complex for someone without principles.

The atheist is not interested in anything except attacks on atheism.

Coincidence is a spiritual pun.

What is called matriarchy is simply moral anarchy, in which the mother alone remains fixed because all the fathers are fugitive and irresponsible.

You'll never find the solution if you don't see the problem.

Freethinkers are occasionally thoughtful, though never free.

Too much capitalism does not mean too many capitalists, but too few capitalists.

The beautification of the world is not a work of nature, but a work of art, then it involves an artist.

By experts in poverty I do not mean sociologists, but poor men.

What life and death may be to a turkey is not my business; but the soul of Scrooge and the body of Cratchit are my business.

One can hardly think too little of one's self. One can hardly think too much of one's soul.

But we are the people of England; and we have not spoken yet. Smile at us, pay us, pass us. But do not quite forget.

Before the Roman came to Rye or out to severn strode, / The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road.