G. K. Chesterton Quotes (136 Quotes)

The gallows in my garden, people say, Is new and neat and adequately tall.

It was one of those chilly and empty afternoons in early winter, when the daylight is silver rather than gold and pewter rather than silver.

The successful businessman sometimes makes money by ability and experience, but he generally makes it by mistake.

Unhappy, can I give you back your honour?

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

You shouldn't take a fence down until you know the reason it was put up.

Wit is a sword it is meant to make people feel the point as well as see it.

The word 'orthodoxy' not only no longer means being right it practically means being wrong.

With monstrous head and sickening cry And ears like errant wings, The devil's walking parody On all four-footed things.

No one can understand Paris and its history who does not understand that its fierceness is the balance and justification of its frivolity. It is called a city of pleasure but it may also very specially be called a city of pain.

The worst of work nowadays is what happens to people when they cease to work.

The average man votes below himself he votes with half a mind or a hundredth part of one. A man ought to vote with the whole of himself, as he worships or gets married. A man ought to vote with his head and heart, his soul and stomach. . .

His English education at one of the great public schools had preserved his intellect perfectly and permanently at the stage of boyhood.

The one stream of poetry which is continually flowing is slang.

Where does a wise man kick a pebble On the beach. Where does a wise man hide a leaf In the forest.

Tea, although an Oriental, Is a gentleman at least; Cocoa is a cad and coward, Cocoa is a vulgar beast.

Most Americans are born drunk, and really require a little wine or beer to sober them. They have a sort of permanent intoxication from within, a sort of invisible champagne. . . . Americans do not need to drink to inspire them to do anything. . .

I want to reassure you I am not this size, really - dear me no, I'm being amplified by the mike.

'There was no star that I forgot to fear
With love and wonder.

Drink to the wrath of God.

Blasphemy itself could not survive religion if anyone doubts that, let him try to blaspheme Odin.

To be simple is the best thing in the world to be modest is the next best thing. I am not so sure about being quiet.

I tell you naught for your comfort, Yea, naught for your desire, Save that the sky grows darker yet And the sea rises higher.

The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road. A reeling road, a rolling road, that rambles round the shire.

All good men are international. Nearly all bad men are cosmopolitan. If we are to be international we must be national.

Every politician is emphatically a promising politician.

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.

The disadvantage of men not knowing the past is that they do not know the present. History is a hill or high point of vantage, from which alone men see the town in which they live or the age in which they are living.

The prophet and the quack are alike admired for a generation, and admired for the wrong reasons.

One of the great disadvantages of hurry is that it takes such a long time.

The folk that live in Liverpool, their heart is in their boots; They go to hell like lambs, they do, because the hooter hoots.

The road from heaven to Hereford Where the apple wood of Hereford Goes all the way to Wales.

The most incredible thing about miracles is that they happen.

A dying monarchy is always one that has too much power, not too little a dying religion always interferes more than it ought, not less.

He could not think up to the height of his own towering style.

People in high life are hardened to the wants and distresses of mankind as surgeons are to their bodily pains.