Notable Quotes
Browse quotes by subject | Browse quotes by author


G. K. CHESTERTON QUOTES III

A beetle may or may not be inferior to a man — the matter awaits demonstration; but if he were inferior by ten thousand fathoms, the fact remains that there is probably a beetle view of things of which a man is entirely ignorant. If he wishes to conceive that point of view, he will scarcely reach it by persistently revelling in the fact that he is not a beetle.

G. K. CHESTERTON, "A Defence of Humilities," The Defendant

The cause which is blocking all progress today is the subtle scepticism which whispers in a million ears that things are not good enough to be worth improving. If the world is good we are revolutionaries, if the world is evil we must be conservatives.

G. K. CHESTERTON, "In Defence of a New Edition"

Precisely because our political speeches are meant to be reported, they are not worth reporting. Precisely because they are carefully designed to be read, nobody reads them.

G. K. CHESTERTON, "On the Cryptic and the Elliptic," All Things Considered

The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.

G. K. CHESTERTON, What's Wrong with the World

Religious and philosophical beliefs are, indeed, as dangerous as fire, and nothing can take from them that beauty of danger. But there is only one way of really guarding ourselves against the excessive danger of them, and that is to be steeped in philosophy and soaked in religion.

G. K. CHESTERTON, Heretics

The most unfathomable schools and sages have never attained to the gravity which dwells in the eyes of a baby of three months old. It is the gravity of astonishment at the universe, and astonishment at the universe is not mysticism, but a transcendent common-sense. The fascination of children lies in this: that with each of them all things are remade, and the universe is put again upon its trial. As we walk the streets and see below us those delightful bulbous heads, three times too big for the body, which mark these human mushrooms, we ought always primarily to remember that within every one of these heads there is a new universe, as new as it was on the seventh day of creation. In each of those orbs there is a new system of stars, new grass, new cities, a new sea.

G. K. CHESTERTON, "A Defence of Baby-Worship," The Defendant

You can free things from alien or accidental laws, but not from the laws of their own nature. You may, if you like, free a tiger from his bars; but do not free him from his stripes.

G. K. CHESTERTON, Orthodoxy

Truths turn into dogmas the instant that they are disputed. Thus every man who utters a doubt defines a religion.

G. K. CHESTERTON, Heretics

Men may keep a sort of level of good, but no man has ever been able to keep on one level of evil.

G. K. CHESTERTON, "The Flying Stars," The Innocence of Father Brown

There are two ways of dealing with nonsense in this world. One way is to put nonsense in the right place; as when people put nonsense into nursery rhymes. The other is to put nonsense in the wrong place; as when they put it into educational addresses, psychological criticisms, and complaints against nursery rhymes or other normal amusements of mankind.

G. K. CHESTERTON, Child Psychology and Nonsense

All government is an ugly necessity.

G. K. CHESTERTON, A Short History of England

Revolutionists make a reform, Conservatives only conserve the reform. They never reform the reform, which is often very much wanted.

G. K. CHESTERTON, What's Wrong with the World

But whenever one meets modern thinkers (as one often does) progressing towards a madhouse, one always finds, on inquiry, that they have just had a splendid escape from another madhouse. Thus, hundreds of people become Socialists, not because they have tried Socialism and found it nice, but because they have tried Individualism and found it nasty.

G. K. CHESTERTON, Alarms and Discursions

Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.

G. K. CHESTERTON, Illustrated London News, Apr. 19, 1930

Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.

G. K. CHESTERTON, "The Eternal Revolution", Orthodoxy

Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.

G. K. CHESTERTON, Orthodoxy

If there were not God, there would be no atheists.

G. K. CHESTERTON, Where All Roads Lead

In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, "I don't see the use of this; let us clear it away." To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: "If you don't see the use of it, I certainly won't let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it."

G. K. CHESTERTON, The Thing: Why I am a Catholic

Why do we laugh? Because it is a gravely religious matter: it is the Fall of Man. Only man can be absurd: for only man can be dignified.

G. K. CHESTERTON, "Spiritualism", All Things Considered

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

G. K. CHESTERTON, attributed, The Offensive Art: Political Satire and Its Censorship

There's a lot of difference between listening and hearing.

G. K. CHESTERTON, "Dr. Hyde, Detective, and the White Pillars Murder", The Collected Works of G. K. Chesterton

The real trouble with this world of ours is not that it is an unreasonable world, nor even that it is a reasonable one. The commonest kind of trouble is that it is nearly reasonable, but not quite. Life is not an illogicality; yet it is a trap for logicians. It looks just a little more mathematical and regular than it is; its exactitude is obvious, but its inexactitude is hidden; its wildness lies in wait.

G. K. CHESTERTON, Orthodoxy

Adventure is the champagne of life, but I prefer my champagne and my adventures dry.

G. K. CHESTERTON, Tremendous Trifles

Tradition does not mean a dead town; it does not mean that the living are dead but that the dead are alive. It means that it still matters what Penn did two hundred years ago or what Franklin did a hundred years ago; I never could feel in New York that it mattered what anybody did an hour ago.

G. K. CHESTERTON, What I Saw in America

Wit is a sword; it is meant to make people feel the point as well as see it.

G. K. CHESTERTON, The Quotable Chesterton: A Topical Compilation of the Wit, Wisdom and Satire of G.K. Chesterton

Variability is one of the virtues of a woman. It avoids the crude requirement of polygamy. So long as you have one good wife you are sure to have a spiritual harem.

G. K. CHESTERTON, Alarms and Discursions

A man treats his own faults as original sin and supposes them scattered everywhere with the seed of Adam. He supposes that men have then added their own foreign vices to the solid and simple foundation of his own private vices. It would astound him to realize that they have actually, by their strange erratic path, avoided his vices as well as his virtues.

G. K. CHESTERTON, What I Saw in America

The weakness of all Utopias is this, that they take the greatest difficulty of man and assume it to be overcome, and then give an elaborate account of the overcoming of the smaller ones. They first assume that no man will want more than his share, and then are very ingenious in explaining whether his share will be delivered by motor-car or balloon.

G. K. CHESTERTON, Heretics

There is no great harm in the theorist who makes up a new theory to fit a new event. But the theorist who starts with a false theory and then sees everything as making it come true is the most dangerous enemy of human reason.

G. K. CHESTERTON, The Flying Inn

Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about.

G. K. CHESTERTON, "The Ethics of Elfland", Orthodoxy

The wisest thing in the world is to cry out before you are hurt. It is no good to cry out after you are hurt; especially after you are mortally hurt. People talk about the impatience of the populace; but sound historians know that most tyrannies have been possible because men moved too late. it is often essential to resist a tyranny before it exists.

G. K. CHESTERTON, Eugenics and Other Evils: An Argument Against the Scientifically Organized State

A man is angry at a libel because it is false, but at a satire because it is true.

G. K. CHESTERTON, Five Types: A Book of Essays

If the citizen is to be a reformer, he must start with some ideal which he does not obtain merely by gazing reverently at the unreformed institutions.

G. K. CHESTERTON, All Is Grist: A Book of Essays

Rome, the legend, founded upon fallen Troy and triumphant over fallen Carthage, had stood for a heroism which was the nearest that any pagan ever came to chivalry. Rome had defended the household gods and the human decencies against the ogres of Africa and the hermaphrodite monstrosities of Greece. But in the lightning flash of this incident, we see great Rome, the imperial republic, going downward under her Lucretian doom. Scepticism has eaten away even the confident sanity of the conquerors of the world.

G. K. CHESTERTON, The Everlasting Man

A pickpocket is obviously a champion of private enterprise. But it would perhaps be an exaggeration to say that a pickpocket is a champion of private property.

G. K. CHESTERTON, The Outline of Sanity

The education of the Parisian child is something corresponding to the clear avenues and the exact squares of Paris. When the Parisian boy has done learning about the French reason and the Roman order he can go out and see the thing repeated in the shapes of many shining public spaces, in the angles of the many streets.

G. K. CHESTERTON, All Things Considered

Journalism largely consists of saying "Lord Jones dead" to people who never knew that Lord Jones was alive.

G. K. CHESTERTON, The Wisdom of Father Brown

They said that I should lose my ideals and begin to believe in the methods of practical politicians. Now, I have not lost my ideals in the least; my faith in fundamentals is exactly what it always was. What I have lost is my childlike faith in practical politics.

G. K. CHESTERTON, Orthodoxy

For children are innocent and love justice, while most of us are wicked and naturally prefer mercy.

G. K. CHESTERTON, The Coloured Lands

The great ideals of the past failed not by being outlived (which must mean over-lived), but by not being lived enough.

G. K. CHESTERTON, What's Wrong with the World

I regard golf as an expensive way of playing marbles.

G. K. CHESTERTON, attributed, 20,000 Quips & Quotes

The family is ... like a little kingdom, and, like most other little kingdoms, is generally in a state of something resembling anarchy.

G. K. CHESTERTON, Heretics

The proper name for the thing is modesty; but as we live in an age of prejudice and must not call things by their right names, we will yield to a more modern nomenclature and call it dignity.

G. K. CHESTERTON, What's Wrong with the World

We ... are all in the same boat, upon a stormy sea. We owe to each other a terrible and tragic loyalty.

G. K. CHESTERTON, All Things Considered


SHARE QUOTES WITH FRIENDS!


Life Quotes

Love Quotes

Death Quotes

God Quotes

Wisdom Quotes

Hope Quotes

Success Quotes

Women Quotes

Happiness Quotes

Shakespeare Quotes