Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes

THERE are no wise few; for in all men rages the folly of the Fall. Take your strongest, happiest, handsomest, best born, best bred, best instructed men on earth and give them special power for half an hour and because they are men they will begin to [perform] badly.

It is the first law of practical courage. To be in the weakest camp is to be in the strongest school.

The man of the true religious tradition understands two things: liberty and obedience. The first means knowing what you really want. The second means knowing what you really trust.

Because our expression is imperfect we need friendship to fill up the imperfections.

The old assumption of the approximate impossibility of war really rested on a similar assumption about the impossibility of evil-and especially of evil in high places.

Blessed is he that expecteth nothing, for he shall be gloriously surprised.

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

You can't have the family farm without the family.

A thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists.

The full value of this life can only be got by fighting; the violent take it by storm. And if we have accepted everything we have missed something - war. This life of ours is a very enjoyable fight, but a very miserable truce.

The man who says, 'my country right or wrong' is like the man who says, 'my mother drunk or sober'

In truth the Church is too unique to prove herself unique. For most popular and easy proof is by parallel; and here there is no parallel.

The one stream of poetry which is continually flowing is slang.

Monotony has nothing to do with a place; monotony, either in its sensation or its infliction, is simply the quality of a person. There are no dreary sights; there are only dreary sight seers.

Jokes are generally honest. Complete solemnity is always dishonest.

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

Posting a letter and getting married [sic] are among the few things left that are entirely romantic; for to be entirely romantic, a thing must be irrevocable

Men can construct a science with very few instruments, or with very plain instruments; but no one on earth could construct a science with unreliable instruments. A man might work out the whole of mathematics with a handful of pebbles, but not with a handful of clay which was always falling apart into new fragments, and falling together into new combinations. A man might measure heaven and earth with a reed, but not with a growing reed.

What embitters the world is not excess of criticism, but absence of self-criticism.

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

It is unpardonable conceit not to laugh at your own jokes. Joking is undignified; that is why it is so good for one's soul. Do not fancy you can be a detached wit and avoid being a buffoon; you cannot. If you are the Court Jester you must be the Court Fool.

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.

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

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

A fairly clear line separated advertisement from art. ... The first effect of the triumph of the capitalist (if we allow him to triumph) will be that that line of demarcation will entirely disappear. There will be no art that might not just as well be advertisement.

If you convey to a woman that something ought to be done, there is always a dreadful danger that she will suddenly do it.

There is something to be said for every error; but, whatever may be said for it, the most important thing to be said about it is that it is erroneous.

Playing as children means playing is the most serious thing in the world.

Even a bad shot is dignified when he accepts a duel.

The men of the East may spell the stars, And times and triumphs mark, But the men signed of the cross of Christ Go gaily in the dark.

Leisure is being allowed to do nothing.

To be simple is the best thing in the world.

Love is not blind; that is the last thing that it is. Love is bound; and the more it is bound the less it is blind.

[Buddhism and Christianity] are in one sense parallel and equal; as a mound and a hollow, as a valley and a hill. There is a sense in which that sublime despair is the only alternative to that divine audacity. It is even true that the truly spiritual and intellectual man sees it as sort of dilemma; a very hard and terrible choice. There is little else on earth that can compare with these for completeness. And he who does not climb the mountain of Christ does indeed fall into the abyss of Buddha.

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.

The purpose of Compulsory Education is to deprive the common people of their commonsense.

Drink because you are happy, but never because you are miserable.

The only object of liberty is life.

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

We can’t turn life into a pleasure. But we can choose such pleasures as are worthy of us and our immortal souls.

There are no new lies, no new heresies. Man is simply not that creative.

A strange fanaticism fills our time: the fanatical hatred of morality, especially of Christian morality.

Thoughts on the Merits of Work The worst of work nowadays is what happens to people when they cease to work.

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

The chief object of education is not to learn things but to unlearn things.

The long words are not the hard words, it is the short words that are hard. There is much more metaphysical subtlety in the word "damn" than in the word "degeneration."

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.

The great misfortune of the modern English is not at all that they are more boastful than other people (they are not); it is that they are boastful about those particular things which nobody can boast of without losing them.