G. K. Chesterton Quotes

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Man seems to be capable of great virtues but not of small virtues; capable of defying his torturer but not of keeping his temper.

G. K. Chesterton
But there is in everything a reasonable division of labour. I have written the book, and nothing on earth would induce me to read it.

G. K. Chesterton
Too much capitalism does not mean too many capitalists, but too few capitalists.

G. K. Chesterton
Yet he is right enough about there being a white magic, if he only knows where to look for it.

G. K. Chesterton
It is quite an old-fashioned fallacy to suppose that our objection to scepticism is that it removes the discipline from life. Our objection to scepticism is that it removes the motive power. Materialism is not a thing which destroys mere restraint. Materialism itself is the great restraint.

G. K. Chesterton
In matters of truth the fact that you don't want to publish something is, nine times out of ten, a proof that you ought to publish it.

G. K. Chesterton
They have given us into the hand of new unhappy lords,
Lords without anger and honour, who dare not carry their swords.
They fight us by shuffling papers; they have bright dead alien eyes;
And they look at our labour and laughter as a tired man looks at flies.
And the load of their loveless pity is worse than the ancient wrongs,
Their doors are shut in the evening; And they know no songs.

G. K. Chesterton
Religious liberty might be supposed to mean that everybody is free to discuss religion. In practice it means that hardly anybody is allowed to mention it.

G. K. Chesterton
People talk of the pathos and failure of plain women; but it is a more terrible thing that a beautiful woman may succeed in everything but womanhood.

G. K. Chesterton
When people impute special vices to the Christian Church, they seem entirely to forget that the world (which is the only other thing there is) has these vices much more. The Church has been cruel; but the world has been much more cruel. The Church has plotted; but the world has plotted much more. The Church has been superstitious; but it has never been so superstitious as the world is when left to itself.

G. K. Chesterton
Experience which was once claimed by the aged is now claimed exclusively by the young.

G. K. Chesterton
The obvious effect of frivolous divorce will be frivolous marriage. If people can be separated for no reason they will feel it all the easier to be united for no reason.

G. K. Chesterton
Betting and such sports are only the stunted and twisted shapes of the original instinct of man for adventure and romance.

G. K. Chesterton
We are to regard existence as a raid or great adventure; it is to be judged, therefore, not by what calamities it encounters, but by what flag it follows and what high town it assaults. The most dangerous thing in the world is to be alive; one is always in danger of one's life. But anyone who shrinks from that is a traitor to the great scheme and experiment of being.

G. K. Chesterton
There is a great man who makes every man feel small. But the real great man is the man who makes every man feel great.

G. K. Chesterton
We make our friends; we make our enemies; but God makes our next-door neighbour.

G. K. Chesterton
A thing may be too sad to be believed or too wicked to be believed or too good to be believed; but it cannot be too absurd to be believed in this planet of frogs and elephants, of crocodiles and cuttle-fish.

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

G. K. Chesterton
The honest poor can sometimes forget poverty. The honest rich can never forget it.

G. K. Chesterton
If prosperity is regarded as the reward of virtue it will be regarded as the symptom of virtue.

G. K. Chesterton
Democracy means government by the uneducated, while aristocracy means government by the badly educated.

G. K. Chesterton
Happiness is not only a hope, but also in some strange manner a memory... we are all kings in exile.

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

G. K. Chesterton
White founts falling in the courts of the sun,
And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run.

G. K. Chesterton
Excuse me if I enjoy myself rather obviously! I don't often have the luck to have a dream like this. It is new to me for a nightmare to lead me to a lobster. It is commonly the other way.

G. K. Chesterton
If you do not understand a man you cannot crush him. And if you do understand him, very probably you will not.

G. K. Chesterton
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
What was wonderful about childhood is that anything in it was a wonder. It was not merely a world full of miracles; it was a miraculous world.

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

G. K. Chesterton
None of the modern machines, none of the modern paraphernalia... have any power except over the people who choose to use them.

G. K. Chesterton