Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes

I regard golf as an expensive way of playing marbles.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

I was planning to go into architecture. But when I arrived, architecture was filled up. Acting was right next to it, so I signed up for acting instead.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

I've searched all the parks in all the cities and found no statues of committees.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

If I can put one touch of rosy sunset into the life of any man or woman, I shall feel that I have worked with God.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

If I had only one sermon to preach it would be a sermon against pride.
Gilbert 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.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

It is as healthy to enjoy sentiment as to enjoy jam.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

It is not funny that anything else should fall down; only that a man should fall down. Why do we laugh? Because it is a gravely religious matter: it is the Fall of Man. Only man can be absurd: for only man can be dignified.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

It isn't that they can't see the solution. It is that they can't see the problem.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

Journalism consists largely in saying "Lord James is dead" to people who never knew Lord James was alive.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

Journalism is popular, but it is popular mainly as fiction. Life is one world, and life seen in the newspapers is another.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

Journalism largely consists of saying "Lord Jones is Dead" to people who never knew that Lord Jones was alive.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

Large organization is loose organization. Nay, it would be almost as true to say that organization is always disorganization.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

Let your religion be less of a theory and more of a love affair.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

Love means to love that which is unlovable; or it is no virtue at all.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect and supreme experience if only one had a colored pencil long enough to draw on the ceiling.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

Man is an exception, whatever else he is. If he is not the image of God, then he is a disease of the dust. If it is not true that a divine being fell, then we can only say that one of the animals went entirely off its head.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

Marriage is an adventure, like going to war.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

Men always talk about the most important things to perfect strangers. In the perfect stranger we perceive man himself; the image of a God is not disguised by resemblances to an uncle or doubts of wisdom of a mustache.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

Men feel that cruelty to the poor is a kind of cruelty to animals. They never feel that it is an injustice to equals; nay it is treachery to comrades.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

Music with dinner is an insult both to the cook and the violinist.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

'My country, right or wrong' is a thing no patriot would ever think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying 'My mother, drunk or sober.'
Gilbert K. Chesterton

Never invoke the gods unless you really want them to appear. It annoys them very much.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

New roads; new ruts.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

No man who worships education has got the best out of education... Without a gentle contempt for education no man's education is complete.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

Nothing is poetical if plain daylight is not poetical; and no monster should amaze us if the normal man does not amaze.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

Once I planned to write a book of poems entirely about the things in my pocket. But I found it would be too long; and the age of the great epics is past.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

One may understand the cosmos, but never the ego; the self is more distant than any star.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

People generally quarrel because they cannot argue.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

People who make history know nothing about history. You can see that in the sort of history they make.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

Some men never feel small, but these are the few men who are.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

Talk about the pews and steeples and the cash that goes therewith! But the souls of Christian people... chuck it, Smith!
Gilbert K. Chesterton

The aim of life is appreciation; there is no sense in not appreciating things; and there is no sense in having more of them if you have less appreciation of them.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because generally they are the same people.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

The cosmos is about the smallest hole that a man can hide his head in.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

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

The man who throws a bomb is an artist, because he prefers a great moment to everything.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

The Museum is not meant either for the wanderer to see by accident or for the pilgrim to see with awe. It is meant for the mere slave of a routine of self-education to stuff himself with every sort of incongruous intellectual food in one indigestible meal.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

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