Famous Quotes by Gilbert Keith Chesterton
- What people call impartiality may simply mean indifference, and what people call partiality may... More
- We call a man a bigot or a slave of dogma because he is a thinker who has thought thoroughly and... More
- Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes—our ancestors. It is the... More
- The greenhorn is the ultimate victor in everything; it is he that gets the most out of life. More
- There are many definite methods, honest and dishonest, which make people rich; the only... More
- When we really worship anything, we love not only its clearness but its obscurity. We exult in... More
- And Noah he often said to his wife when he sat down to dine,
“I don’t care where the... More
- The seven heavens came roaring down for the throats of hell to
drink,
And Noah he cocked... More
- All architecture is great architecture after sunset; perhaps architecture is really a nocturnal... More
- Variability is one of the virtues of a woman. It avoids the crude requirement of polygamy. So... More
- Your next-door neighbour ... is not a man; he is an environment. He is the barking of a dog; he... More
- Most Americans are born drunk, and really require a little wine or beer to sober them. They have... More
- The average man votes below himself; he votes with half a mind or a hundredth part of one. A man... More
- People accuse journalism of being too personal; but to me it has always seemed far too... More
- An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure... More
- Among the Very Rich you will never find a really generous man, even by accident. They may give... More
- For your God of dream or devil
You will answer, not to me.
Talk about the pews and... More
- Once I planned to write a book of poems entirely about the things in my pocket. But I found it... More
- Chastity does not mean abstention from sexual wrong; it means something flaming, like Joan of Arc. More
- White ... is not a mere absence of colour; it is a shining and affirmative thing, as fierce as... More
- The chief assertion of religious morality is that white is a colour. Virtue is not the absence of... More
- The most dangerous criminal now is the entirely lawless modern philosopher. Compared to him,... More
- He that hung upon the Torturing Tree
Heard all the crickets singing, and was glad. More
- This much, O heaven—if I should brood or rave,
Pity me not; but let the world be... More
- The aim of life is appreciation; there is no sense in not appreciating things; and there is no... More
- Man seems to be capable of great virtues but not of small virtues; capable of defying his... More
- Boyhood is a most complex and incomprehensible thing. Even when one has been through it, one does... More
- For the great Gaels of Ireland
Are the men that God made mad,
For all their wars are... More
- Science in the modern world has many uses; its chief use, however, is to provide long words to... More
- A turkey is more occult and awful than all the angels and archangels. In so far as God has partly... More
- The honest poor can sometimes forget poverty. The honest rich can never forget it. More
- If our caricaturists do not hate their enemies, it is not because they are too big to hate them,... More
- Cruelty is, perhaps, the worst kid of sin. Intellectual cruelty is certainly the worst kind of... More
- “My country, right or wrong” is a thing that no patriot would think of saying except in a... More
- The old idea that the joke was not good enough for the company has been superseded by the new... More
- The lunatic is the man who lives in a small world but thinks it is a large one; he is the man who... More
- If the barricades went up in our streets and the poor became masters, I think the priests would... More
- The family is the test of freedom; because the family is the only thing that the free man makes... More
- And they that rule in England
In stately conclave met,
Alas, alas, for England
They... More
- All good men are international. Nearly all bad men are cosmopolitan. If we are to be... More
- It is as healthy to enjoy sentiment as to enjoy jam. More
- The man who throws a bomb is an artist, because he prefers a great moment to everything. More
- There is no such thing on earth as an uninteresting subject; the only thing that can exist is an... More
- The artistic temperament is a disease that affects amateurs.... Artists of a large and wholesome... More
- Happiness is a mystery, like religion, and should never be rationalised. More
- If you do not understand a man you cannot crush him. And if you do understand him, very probably... More
- No one can understand Paris and its history who does not understand that its fierceness is the... More
- A building is akin to dogma; it is insolent, like dogma. Whether or no it is permanent, it claims... More
- Love-light of Spain—hurrah!
Death-light of Africa!
Don John of Austria
Is riding to... More
- The North is full of tangled things and texts and aching eyes
And dead is all the innocence... More
- And the Pope has cast his arms abroad for agony and loss,
And called the kings of Christendom... More
- the green hells of the sea
Where fallen skies and evil hues and eyeless creatures be;
On... More
- We are justified in enforcing good morals, for they belong to all mankind; but we are not... More
- Democracy means government by the uneducated, while aristocracy means government by the badly... More
- There is nothing the matter with Americans except their ideals. The real American is all right;... More
- A puritan is a person who pours righteous indignation into the wrong things. More
- Nothing is poetical if plain daylight is not poetical; and no monster should amaze us if the... More
- What affects men sharply about a foreign nation is not so much finding or not finding familiar... More
- I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that... More
- The dignity of the artist lies in his duty of keeping awake the sense of wonder in the world. In... More
- The Museum is not meant either for the wanderer to see by accident or for the pilgrim to see with... More
- Man does not live by soap alone; and hygiene, or even health, is not much good unless you can... More
- The disadvantage of men not knowing the past is that they do not know the present. History is a... More
- Facts as facts do not always create a spirit of reality, because reality is a spirit. More
- Journalism is popular, but it is popular mainly as fiction. Life is one world, and life seen in... More
- The cosmos is about the smallest hole that a man can hide his head in. More
- Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a... More
- The true object of all human life is play. Earth is a task garden; heaven is a playground. More
- Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may... More
- Buddhism is not a creed, it is a doubt. More
- The mere brute pleasure of reading—the sort of pleasure a cow must have in grazing. More
- A radical generally meant a man who thought he could somehow pull up the root without affecting... More
- The Renaissance was, as much as anything, a revolt from the logic of the Middle Ages. We speak of... More
- The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being... More
- It is not funny that anything else should fall down; only that a man should fall down.... Why do... More
- If prosperity is regarded as the reward of virtue it will be regarded as the symptom of virtue. More
- A cosmic philosophy is not constructed to fit a man; a cosmic philosophy is constructed to fit a... More
- Half a truth is better than no politics. More
- The vulgar man is always the most distinguished, for the very desire to be distinguished is vulgar. More
- Youth is the period in which a man can be hopeless. The end of every episode is the end of the... More
- The Christ-child lay on Mary’s lap,
His hair was like a light.
(O weary, weary were the... More
- When you have really exhausted an experience you always reverence and love it. The two things... More
- True contentment is a thing as active as agriculture. It is the power of getting out of any... More
- All slang is metaphor, and all metaphor is poetry. More
- Fools! For I also had my hour;
One far fierce hour and sweet:
There was a shout about my... More
- With monstrous head and sickening cry
And ears like errant wings,
The devil’s walking... More
- One may understand the cosmos, but never the ego; the self is more distant than any star. More
- The ordinary scientific man is strictly a sentimentalist. He is a sentimentalist in this... More
- With any recovery from morbidity there must go a certain healthy humiliation. More
- A new philosophy generally means in practice the praise of some old vice. More
- In matters of truth the fact that you don’t want to publish something is, nine times out of... More
- The full value of this life can only be got by fighting; the violent take it by storm. And if we... More
- Those thinkers who cannot believe in any gods often assert that the love of humanity would be in... More
- Brave men are all vertebrates; they have their softness on the surface and their toughness in the... More
- A stiff apology is a second insult.... The injured party does not want to be compensated because... More
- The timidity of the child or the savage is entirely reasonable; they are alarmed at this world,... More
- The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road.
A reeling road, a rolling road,... More
- Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode,
The rolling English drunkard made the... More
- The fatal metaphor of progress, which means leaving things behind us, has utterly obscured the... More
- Ritual will always mean throwing away something: destroying our corn or wine upon the altar of... More
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