G.K. Chesterton Quotes

But the more shrewdly and earnestly we study the histories of men, the less ready shall we be to make use of the word ‘artificial.’ Nothing in the world has ever been artificial. Many customs, many dresses, many works of art are branded with artificiality because the exhibit vanity and self-consciousness: as if vanity were not a deep and elemental thing, like love and hate and the fear of death. Vanity may be found in darkling deserts, in the hermit and in the wild beasts that crawl around him. It may be good or evil, but assuredly it is not artificial: vanity is a voice out of the abyss.
G.K. Chesterton
Do not free a camel of the burden of his hump you may be freeing him from being a camel.
G.K. Chesterton
A man must love a thing very much if he not only practises it without any hope of fame and money but even practises it without any hope of doing it well.
G.K. Chesterton
One sees great things from the valley only small things from the peak.
G.K. Chesterton
Merely having an open mind is nothing. The object of opening the mind as of opening the mouth is to shut it again on something solid.
G.K. Chesterton
Of all modern notions the worst is this: that domesticity is dull. Inside the home they say is dead decorum and routine outside is adventure and variety. But the truth is that the home is the only place of liberty the only spot on earth where a man can alter arrangements suddenly make an experiment or indulge in a whim. The home is not the one tame place in a world of adventure it is the one wild place in a world of rules and set tasks.
G.K. Chesterton
I am not absent-minded. It is the presence of mind that makes me unaware of everything else.
G.K. Chesterton
He who lives in the future lives in a featureless blank he lives in impersonality he lives in Nirvana. The past is democratic because it is a people. The future is despotic because it is a caprice. Every man is alone in his prediction just as each man is alone in a dream.
G.K. Chesterton
A man does not know what he is saying until he knows what he is not saying.
G.K. Chesterton
The classes that wash most are those that work least.
G.K. Chesterton
To be simple is the best thing in the world.
G.K. Chesterton
Silence is the unbearable repartee.
G.K. Chesterton
One may understand the cosmos but never the ego the self is more distant than any star.
G.K. Chesterton
The Bible tells us to love our neighbors and also to love our enemies probably because they are generally the same people.
G.K. Chesterton
When people cease to believe in God they don't believe in nothing they believe in anything.
G.K. Chesterton
Facts as facts do not always create a spirit of reality because reality is a spirit.
G.K. Chesterton
Angels fly because they take themselves lightly.
G.K. Chesterton
Psychoanalysis is confession without absolution.
G.K. Chesterton
New roads new ruts.
G.K. Chesterton
It isn't that they can't see the solution it's that they can't see the problem.
G.K. Chesterton
The mind that finds its way to wild places is the poet's but the mind that never finds its way back is the lunatic's.
G.K. Chesterton
Large organization is loose organization. Nay it would be almost as true to say that organization is always disorganization.
G.K. Chesterton
There is but an inch of difference between the cushioned chamber and the padded cell.
G.K. Chesterton
Is dishwater dull? Naturalists with microscopes have told me that it teems with quiet fun.
G.K. Chesterton
Music with dinner is an insult both to the cook and the violinist.
G.K. Chesterton
The Bible tells us to love our neighbors and also to love our enemies probably because they are generally the same people.
G.K. Chesterton
When people cease to believe in God they don't believe in nothing they believe in anything.
G.K. Chesterton
Facts as facts do not always create a spirit of reality because reality is a spirit.
G.K. Chesterton
Angels fly because they take themselves lightly.
G.K. Chesterton
Psychoanalysis is confession without absolution.
G.K. Chesterton
New roads new ruts.
G.K. Chesterton
It isn't that they can't see the solution it's that they can't see the problem.
G.K. Chesterton
The mind that finds its way to wild places is the poet's but the mind that never finds its way back is the lunatic's.
G.K. Chesterton
Do not free a camel of the burden of his hump you may be freeing him from being a camel.
G.K. Chesterton
Large organization is loose organization. Nay it would be almost as true to say that organization is always disorganization.
G.K. Chesterton
There is but an inch of difference between the cushioned chamber and the padded cell.
G.K. Chesterton
Is dishwater dull? Naturalists with microscopes have told me that it teems with quiet fun.
G.K. Chesterton
Music with dinner is an insult both to the cook and the violinist.
G.K. Chesterton
To be clever enough to get all that money one must be stupid enough to want it.
G.K. Chesterton
A great city is the place to escape the true drama of provincial life and find solace in fantasy.
G.K. Chesterton
Men always talk about the most important things to perfect strangers.
G.K. Chesterton
A tragedy means always a man's struggle with that which is stronger than man.
G.K. Chesterton
Forgiving means to pardon the unpardonable Faith means believing the unbelievable And hoping means to hope when things are hopeless.
G.K. Chesterton
Hope is the power of being cheerful in circumstances which we know to be desperate.
G.K. Chesterton
The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost.
G.K. Chesterton
Happy is he who still loves something he loved in the nursery: He has not been broken in two by time he is not two men but one and he has saved not only his soul but his life.
G.K. Chesterton
No man can be merry unless he is serious.
G.K. Chesterton
The true object of all human life is play.
G.K. Chesterton
Happiness is a mystery like religion and it should never be rationalized.
G.K. Chesterton
The word 'good' has many meanings. For example if a man were to shoot his grandmother at a range of five hundred yards I should call him a good shot but not necessarily a good man.
G.K. Chesterton
Life exists for the love of music or beautiful things.
G.K. Chesterton
The true object of human life is play.
G.K. Chesterton
There is one thing which gives radiance to everything. It is the idea of something around the corner.
G.K. Chesterton
I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act but I do believe in a fate that falls on men unless they act.
G.K. Chesterton
We make our friends we make our enemies but God makes our next-door neighbour.
G.K. Chesterton
True contentment... is the power of getting out of any situation all that there is in it. It is arduous and it is rare.
G.K. Chesterton
The way to love anything is to realize that it may be lost.
G.K. Chesterton
It matters very little whether a man is discontented in the name of pessimism or progress if his discontent does in fact paralyse his power of appreciating what he has got.
G.K. Chesterton
You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera and grace before the play and pantomime and grace before I open a book and grace before sketching painting swimming fencing boxing walking playing dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink.
G.K. Chesterton
The historic glory of America lies in the fact that it is the one nation that was founded like a church. That is it was founded on a faith that was not merely summed up after it had exited but was defined before it existed.
G.K. Chesterton