G. K. Chesterton Quotes

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The common idea [is] that mathematics is a dull subject whereas the testimony of all those who have any dealings with it shows that it is one of the most thrilling and tantalising and enchanting subjects in the world.

G. K. Chesterton
The sane man knows that he has a touch of the beast, a touch of the devil, a touch of the saint, a touch of the citizen. Nay, the really sane man knows that he has a touch of the madman.

G. K. Chesterton
The people has no definite disbelief in the temples of theology. The people has a very fiery and practical disbelief in the temples of physical science.

G. K. Chesterton
The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical encore.

G. K. Chesterton
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
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.

G. K. Chesterton
Apparently a scientist is a man who surveys all the sciences, without any particular study of them, and then gives expression to his own moral principles or prejudices.

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

G. K. Chesterton
A nation that has nothing but its amusements will not be amused for long.

G. K. Chesterton
A straight liner is straight And a square mile is flat: But you learn in trigonometrics a trick worth two of that.

G. K. Chesterton
O God of earth and altar,
Bow down and hear our cry,
Our earthly rulers falter,
Our people drift and die;
The walls of gold entomb us,
The swords of scorn divide,
Take not thy thunder from us,
But take away our pride.

G. K. Chesterton
Youth is always too serious, and just now it is too serious about frivolity.

G. K. Chesterton
Sometimes he even embarrassed the company by phrases suggesting that there was some difference between a Liberal and a Conservative.

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

G. K. Chesterton
I came to the conclusion that the optimist thought everything good except the pessimist, and that the pessimist thought everything bad, except himself.

G. K. Chesterton
We do not need a censorship of the press. We have a censorship by the press... It is not we who silence the press. It is the press who silences us.

G. K. Chesterton
Against a dark sky all flowers look like fireworks. There is something strange about them, at once vivid and secret, like flowers traced in fire in the phantasmal garden of a witch.

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

G. K. Chesterton
It is cold anarchy to say that all men are to meddle in all men'smarriages. It is cold anarchy to say that any doctor may seize andsegregate anyone he likes. But it is not anarchy to say that a fewgreat hygienists might enclose or limit the life of all citizens,as nurses do with a family of children. It is not anarchy, it istyranny; but tyranny is a workable thing.

G. K. Chesterton
If an editor can only make people angry enough, they will write half his newspaper for him for nothing.

G. K. Chesterton
If our caricaturists do not hate their enemies, it is not because they are too big to hate them, but because their enemies are not big enough to hate.

G. K. Chesterton
Some of the most frantic lies on the face of life are told with modesty and restraint; for the simple reason that only modesty and restraint will save them.

G. K. Chesterton
We are learning to do a great many clever things. The next great task will be to learn not to do them.

G. K. Chesterton
It is generally the man who is not ready to argue, who is ready to sneer.

G. K. Chesterton
Pride juggles with her toppling towers, They strike the sun and cease, But the firm feet of humility They grip the ground like trees.

G. K. Chesterton
The old idea that the joke was not good enough for the company has been superseded by the new aristocratic idea that the company was not worthy of the joke. They have introduced an almost insane individualism into that one form of intercourse which is specially and uproariously communal. They have made even levities into secrets. They have made laughter lonelier than tears.

G. K. Chesterton
Science finds facts in Nature, but Science is not Nature; because Science has co-ordinated ideas, interpretations and analyses; and can say of Nature what Nature cannot say for itself.

G. K. Chesterton
A man cannot have the energy to produce good art without having the energy to wish to pass beyond it.

G. K. Chesterton
Honour is a luxury for aristocrats, but it is a necessity for hall-porters.

G. K. Chesterton
The trouble about always trying to preserve the health of the body is that it is so difficult to do without destroying the health of the mind.

G. K. Chesterton