Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes

The only defensible war is a war of defense.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

The only way to be sure of catching a train is to miss the one before it.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

The paradox of courage is that a man must be a little careless of his life even in order to keep it.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

The perplexity of life arises from there being too many interesting things in it for us to be interested properly in any of them.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

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

The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

The present condition of fame is merely fashion.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

The purpose of Compulsory Education is to deprive the common people of their commonsense.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

The simplification of anything is always sensational.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

The traveler sees what he sees, the tourist sees what he has come to see.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

The trouble with always trying to preserve the health of the body is that it is so difficult to do without destroying the health of the mind.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

The true object of all human life is play. Earth is a task garden; heaven is a playground.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

The way to love anything is to realize that it may be lost.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one's own country as a foreign land.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

The whole order of things is as outrageous as any miracle which could presume to violate it.
Gilbert 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.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

Their is a road from the eye to heart that does not go through the intellect.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

There are no rules of architecture for a castle in the clouds.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

There is a great deal of difference between an eager man who wants to read a book and the tired man who wants a book to read.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

There is but an inch of difference between a cushioned chamber and a padded cell.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

There is no such thing on earth as an uninteresting subject; the only thing that can exist is an uninterested person.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

There is nothing the matter with Americans except their ideals. The real American is all right; it is the ideal American who is all wrong.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

Those thinkers who cannot believe in any gods often assert that the love of humanity would be in itself sufficient for them; and so, perhaps, it would, if they had it.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

To be clever enough to get all that money, one must be stupid enough to want it.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

To be clever enough to get all the money, one must be stupid enough to want it.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

To love means loving the unlovable. To forgive means pardoning the unpardonable. Faith means believing the unbelievable. Hope means hoping when everything seems hopeless.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to that arrogant oligarchy who merely happen to be walking around.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

True contentment is a thing as active as agriculture. It is the power of getting out of any situation all that there is in it. It is arduous and it is rare.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

Virtue is not the absense of vices or the avoidance of moral dangers; virtue is a vivid and separate ting, like pain or a particular smell.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

We are justified in enforcing good morals, for they belong to all mankind; but we are not justified in enforcing good manners, for good manners always mean our own manners.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

We make our friends; we make our enemies; but God makes our next door neighbour.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

When it comes to life the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

When we were children we were grateful to those who filled our stockings at Christmas time. Why are we not grateful to God for filling our stockings with legs?
Gilbert K. Chesterton

White is not a mere absence of color; it is a shining and affirmative thing, as fierce as red, as definite as black. God paints in many colors; but He never paints so gorgeously, I had almost said so gaudily, as when He paints in white.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

White... is not a mere absence of colour; it is a shining and affirmative thing, as fierce as red, as definite as black... God paints in many colours; but He never paints so gorgeously, I had almost said so gaudily, as when He paints in white.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

With any recovery from morbidity there must go a certain healthy humiliation.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

Without education we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

Women prefer to talk in twos, while men prefer to talk in threes.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

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