G. K. Chesterton Quotes (136 Quotes)

Truths turn into dogmas the minute they are disputed.

Charity is the power of defending that which we know to be indefensible. Hope is the power of being cheerful in circumstances which we know to be desperate.

The wine they drink in Paradise; They make in Haute Lorraine.

Soldiers have many faults, but they have one redeeming merit they are never worshippers of force. Soldiers more than any other men are taught severely and systematically that might is not right.

Gullibility is the key to all adventures. The greenhorn is the ultimate victor in everything it is he who get the most out of life.

A large section of the intelligentsia seems wholly devoid of intelligence.

The men that worked for England; They have their graves at home.

We think for a General to fight an enemy, it is important to know the enemy's numbers, but still more important to know the enemy's philosophy.

God made the wicked Grocer For a mystery and a sign, That men might shun the awful shop And go to inns to dine.

The modern world . . . has no notion except that of simplifying something by destroying nearly everything.

Am in Birmingham. Where ought I to be.

There is nothing that fails like success.

But we are the people of England and we have not spoken yet. Smile at us, pay us, pass us. But do not quite forget.

The world will never starve for want of wonders but only for want of wonder.

Just the other day in the Underground I enjoyed the pleasure of offering my seat to three ladies.

It is not the man of pleasure who has pleasure it is not the man of the world who appreciates the world. ... It is the awkward man, whose evening dress does not fit him, whose gloves will not go on, whose compliments will not come off. . .

The man who sees consistency in things is a wit the man who sees the inconsistency in things is a humorist.

Mankind is not a tribe of animals to which we owe compassion. Mankind is a club to which we owe our subscription.

I rose politely in the club And said, I feel a little bored Will someone take me to a pub'

There is no skeptic who does not feel that men have doubted before, but no man in love thinks that anyone has been in love before.

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.

Earth will grow worse till men redeem it, And wars more evil, ere all wars cease.

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

And we were angry and poor and happy, And proud of seeing our names in print.

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.

Tradition does not mean the living are dead, but that the dead are living.

Individually, men may present a more or less rational appearance, eating, sleeping and scheming. But humanity as a whole is changeful, mystical, fickle and delightful. Men are men, but Man is a woman.

I believe in getting into hot water. I think it keeps you clean.

And Noah he often said to his wife when he sat down to dine, I don't care where the water goes if it doesn't get into the wine'.

Talk about the pews and steeples; And the cash that goes therewith; But the souls of Christian peoples . . . Chuck it, Smith.

The rich are the scum of the earth in every country.

It seems a pity that psychology should have destroyed all our knowledge of human nature.

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

There's no such thing as fighting on the winning side one fights to find out which is the winning side.

The chief assertion of religious morality is that white is a colour. Virtue is not the absence of vices or the avoidance of moral dangers virtue is a vivid and separate thing, like pain or a particular smell.

But on this, God's harp supernal, stretched but to be stricken once,
Hoary time is a beginner, Life a bungler, Death a dunce.

He crams with cans of poisoned meat The subjects of the King, And when they die by thousands Why, he laughs like anything.

Spring never is Spring unless it comes too soon.

The golden age only comes to men when they have forgotten gold.

There are many definite methods, honest and dishonest, which make people rich the only instinct I know of which does it is that instinct which theological Christianity crudely describes as the sin of avarice.

Psychoanalysis is confession without absolution.

To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it.

The right kind of monarchy is one where everybody goes about with the permanent conviction that the king can do no wrong.

They have given us into the hand of new unhappy lords, Lords without anger and honour, who dare not carry their swords. They fight by shuffling papers they have bright dead alien eyes. . .

I will not call it my philosophy, for I did not make it. God and humanity made it, and it made me.

A cosmic philosophy is not constructed to fit a man a cosmic philosophy is constructed to fit a cosmos. A man can no more possess a private religion than he can possess a private sun and moon.

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.

Strong gongs groaning as the guns boom far, Don John of Austria is going to the war.

A building is akin to dogma it is insolent, like dogma. Whether or no it is permanent, it claims permanence, like a dogma.

How beautiful it would be for someone who could not read.