G. K. Chesterton Quotes

844 Sourced Quotes

I am concerned with a certain way of looking at life, which was created in me by the fairy tales, but has since been meekly ratified by the mere facts.

G. K. Chesterton
The man who kills a man kills a man. The man who kills himself kills all men. As far as he is concerned, he wipes out the world.

G. K. Chesterton
It is a mathematical fact that if a line be not perfectly directed towards a point, it will actually go further away from it as it comes nearer to it.

G. K. Chesterton
Nine out of ten of what we call new ideas are simply old mistakes.

G. K. Chesterton
A fad or heresy is the exaltation of something which even if true, is secondary or temporary in its nature against those things which are essential and eternal, those things which always prove themselves true in the long run. In short, it is the setting up of the mood against the mind.

G. K. Chesterton
The Darwinian movement has made no difference to mankind, except that, instead of talking unphilosophically about philosophy, they now talk unscientifically about science.

G. K. Chesterton
Science boasts of the distance of its stars; of the terrific remoteness of the things of which it has to speak. But poetry and religion always insist upon the proximity, the almost menacing closeness of the things with which they are concerned. Always the Kingdom of Heaven is "At Hand."

G. K. Chesterton
Catholicism is not ritualism; it may in the future be fighting some sort of superstitious and idolatrous exaggeration of ritual. Catholicism is not asceticism; it has again and again in the past repressed fanatical and cruel exaggerations of asceticism. Catholicism is not mere mysticism; it is even now defending human reason against the mere mysticism of the Pragmatists.

G. K. Chesterton
For my friend said that he opened his intellect as the sun opens the fans of a palm tree, opening for opening's sake, opening infinitely for ever. But I said that I opened my intellect as I opened my mouth, in order to shut it again on something solid. I was doing it at the moment. And as I truly pointed out, it would look uncommonly silly if I went on opening my mouth infinitely, for ever and ever.

G. K. Chesterton
That young man with the long, auburn hair and the impudent face - that young man was not really a poet; but surely he was a poem.

G. K. Chesterton
It seems to me,' said the other, 'That you are simply seeking a pretext to insult the Marquis.' By George!' said Syme facing round and looking at him, 'What a clever chap you are!

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

G. K. Chesterton
A good joke is the one ultimate and sacred thing which cannot be criticized. Our relations with a good joke are direct and even divine relations.

G. K. Chesterton
The criminal is the creative artist; the detective only the critic.

G. K. Chesterton
It is all as of old, the empty clangour,
The NOTHING scrawled on a five-foot page,
The huckster who, mocking holy anger,
Painfully paints his face with rage.
…
We that fight till the world is free,
We have no comfort in victory;
We have read each other as Cain his brother,
We know each other, these slaves and we.

G. K. Chesterton
To hurry through one's leisure is the most unbusiness-like of actions.

G. K. Chesterton
Pride consists in a man making his personality the only test, instead of making truth the test. The sceptic feels himself too large to measure life by the largest things; and ends by measuring it by the smallest thing of all.

G. K. Chesterton
It is because artists do not practise, patrons do not patronize, crowds do not assemble to reverently worship the great work of Doing Nothing, that the world has lost its philosophy and even failed to invent a new religion.

G. K. Chesterton
A man who has lived and loved falls down dead and the worms eat him. That is Materialism if you like. That is Atheism if you like.

G. K. Chesterton
There is a law written in the darkest of the Books of Life, and it is this: If you look at a thing nine hundred and ninety-nine times, you are perfectly safe; if you look at it the thousandth time, you are in frightful danger of seeing it for the first time.

G. K. Chesterton
After the first silence the small man said to the other: 'Where does a wise man hide a pebble?'
And the tall man answered in a low voice: 'On the beach.'
The small man nodded, and after a short silence said: 'Where does a wise man hide a leaf?'
And the other answered: 'In the forest.'

G. K. Chesterton
A sober man may become a drunkard through being a coward. A brave man may become a coward through being a drunkard.

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
A change of opinions is almost unknown in an elderly military man.

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