Gilbert Chesterton Quotes: top 100 famous quotes about Gilbert Chesterton

Gilbert Chesterton Quotes & Sayings

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It is shorter to state the things forbidden than the things permitted; precisely because most things are permitted and only a few things forbidden. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

The people who are most bigoted are those who have no conviction at all. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

It is the chief value of legend to mix up the centuries while preserving the sentiment. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

Free verse'? You may as well call sleeping in a ditch 'free architecture'. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

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

A large section of the intelligentsia seems wholly devoid of intelligence. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

Each generation is converted by the saint who contradicts it most. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

Why be something to everybody when you can be everything to somebody? — Gilbert K. Chesterton

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. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

Half a truth is better than no politics. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

A modern man may disapprove of some of his sweeping reforms, and approve others; but finds it difficult not to admire even where he does not approve. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

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

If a man only likes victory he must always come late for the battle. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

Every true artist feels that he is touching transcendental truths; that his images are shadows of things seen through the veil. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

Price is a crazy and incalculable thing, while Value is an intrinsic and indestructible thing. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

Every time a man knocks on a brothel door, he is really knocking for God — Gilbert K. Chesterton

Forms of expression always appear turgid to those who do not share the emotions they represent. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

To downgrade the human mind is bad theology. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

I am a bad reporter because everything seems to me worth reporting; and a bad reviewer because every sentence in every book suggests a separate essay. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

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

The golden age only comes to men when they have forgotten gold. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

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

It is human to err; and the only final and deadly error, among all our errors, is denying that we have ever erred. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

A great man is not a man so strong that he feels less than other men; he is a man so strong that he feels more. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

For Scotland has a double dose of the poison called heredity; the sense of blood in the aristocrat, the sense of doom in the Calvinist. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

Nothing can ever overcome that one enormous sex (female) superiority that even the male child is born closer to his mother than to his father. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

The paradox of courage is that a man must be a little careless of his life even in order to keep it. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

Altruists, with thin, weak voices, denounce Christ as an egoist. Egoists (with even thinner and weaker voices) denounce Him as an altruist. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

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

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

The worst moment for an atheist is when he feels a profound sense of gratitude and has no one to thank. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

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

Whatever else we may say of our own age, for good or evil, nobody is likely to call it an Age of Reason. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

I've searched all the parks in all the cities and found no statues of committees. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

If I had only one sermon to preach it would be a sermon against pride. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

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. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

In a world flagrant with the failures of civilization, what is there particularly immortal about our own? — Gilbert K. Chesterton

Feminists are those who cannot stand female characteristics. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

The disadvantage of men not knowing the past is that they do not know the present. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

You never know the best about men until you know the worst about them. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

The determining bulk of Scotch people had heard of golf ever since they had heard of God and often considered the two as of equal importance. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

Marriage halves our griefs, doubles our joys, and quadruples our expenses — Gilbert K. Chesterton

When a woman puts up her fists to a man she is putting herself in the only posture in which he is not afraid of her. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

Surprise is the secret of joy. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

It is very good for a man to talk about what he does not understand; as long as he understands that he does not understand it. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

Research is the search of people who don't know what they want. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

There must be some good in the life of battle, for so many good men have enjoyed being soldiers. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

There are an infinity of angles at which one falls, only one at which one stands. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

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

I should say that psycho-analysis was confession without absolution. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

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

The old religionist cried out for his god. The new religionist cries out for some god to be his. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

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

Life exists for the love of music or beautiful things. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

One of the chief uses of religion is that it makes us remember our coming from darkness, the simple fact that we are created. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

It is the root of all religion that a man knows that he is nothing in order to thank God that he is something. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

By all men bond to Nothing, Being slaves without a lord, By one blind idiot world obeyed, Too blind to be abhorred. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

We are like the penny, because we have the image of the king stamped on us, the divine king. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

The danger of loss of faith in God is not that one will believe in nothing, but rather that one will believe in anything. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

God is like the sun; you cannot look at it, but without it you cannot look at anything else. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

Men rush toward complexity; but yearn for simplicity. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

Faith means believing the unbelievable. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

Acceptance is the truest kinship with humanity. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

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

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

The Universe is the most extraordinary masterpiece ever constructed by nobody. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

The decay of society is praised by artists as the decay of a corpse is praised by worms. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

Is there anyone ... who will maintain that the Party System could have been created by people particularly fond of truth? — Gilbert K. Chesterton

Thanks are the highest form of thought. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

You cannot love a thing without wanting to fight for it. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

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

Fairy tales are more than true ... — Gilbert K. Chesterton

When a man ceases to believe in god, he does not believe in nothing. He believes in everything. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

The Mass is not only about God becoming man, it is about Man becoming more himself. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

A feminist is someone who loathes being a woman and who dislikes the chief feminine characteristics. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

The vulgar man is always the most distinguished, for the very desire to be distinguished is vulgar. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

The poor complain that they are governed badly. The rich complain that they are governed at all. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

[A pacifist is] the last and least excusable on the list of the enemies of society. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

The strangest whim has seized me ... After all I think I will not hang myself today. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

Boys like romantic tales; but babies like realistic tales-because they find them romantic. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

The wine they drink in Paradise
They make in Haute Lorraine. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

We are all in the same boat, in a stormy sea, and we owe each other a terrible loyalty. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

Evil comes at leisure like the disease. Good comes in a hurry like the doctor. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

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

In a world where everything is ridiculous, nothing can be ridiculed. You cannot unmask a mask. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

Is ditchwater dull? Naturalists with microscopes have told me that it teems with quiet fun. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

Nothing taken for granted; everything received with gratitude; everything passed on with grace. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

All men are ordinary men; the extraordinary men are those who know it. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

I agree with the realistic Irishman who said he preferred to prophesy after the event. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

There is no logical connection between flying and laying eggs. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

Fable is more historical than fact, because fact tells us about one man and fable tells us about a million men. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

CIVILISATION is not to be judged by the rapidity of communication, but by the value of what is communicated. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

An almost unnatural vigilance is really required of the citizen because of the horrible rapidity with which human institutions grow old. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

You could compile the worst book in the world entirely out of selected passages from the best writers in the world. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

Progress is the mother of all problems. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

The moderns do not realize modernity. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

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