Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes

What is the good of words if they aren't important enough to quarrel over? Why do we choose one word more than another if there isn't any difference between them? If you called a woman a chimpanzee instead of an angel, wouldn't there be a quarrel about a word? If you're not going to argue about words, what are you going to argue about? Are you going to convey your meaning to me by moving your ears? The Church and the heresies always used to fight about words, because they are the only thing worth fighting about.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Moving Quotes , Angel Quotes

The Darwinian movement has made no difference to mankind, except that, instead of talking unphilosophically about philosophy, they now talk unscientifically about science.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Philosophy Quotes , Science Quotes

A society is in decay, final or transitional, when common sense really becomes uncommon.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Faith Quotes , Inspiration Quotes

Though the academic authorities are actually proud of conducting everything by means of Examinations, they seldom indulge in what religious people used to descibe as Self-Examination. The consequence is that the modern State has educated its citizens in a series of ephemeral fads.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Religious Quotes , Mean Quotes

One can sometimes do good by being the right person in the wrong place.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Sometimes Quotes , Persons Quotes

Sticking to one woman is a small price to pay for so much as having seen one woman.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Pay Quotes

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

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Inspirational Quotes , Earth Quotes

You can only find truth with logic if you have already found truth without it.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Spiritual Quotes , Witty Quotes

The whole curse of the last century has been what is called the Swing of the Pendulum; that is, the idea that Man must go alternately from one extreme to the other. It is a shameful and even shocking fancy; it is the denial of the whole dignity of the mankind. When Man is alive he stands still. It is only when he is dead that he swings.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Men Quotes , Swings Quotes

It's not that we don't have enough scoundrels to curse; it's that we don't have enough good men to curse them.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Men Quotes , Catholic Quotes

It is human to err; and the only final and deadly error, among all our errors, is denying that we have ever erred.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Errors Quotes , Finals Quotes

The new school of art and thought does indeed wear an air of audacity, and breaks out everywhere into blasphemies, as if it required any courage to say a blasphemy. There is only one thing that it requires real courage to say, and that is a truism.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Courage Quotes , Art Quotes

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

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Sea Quotes , Sky Quotes

The modern materialists are not permitted to doubt; they are forbidden to believe.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Believe Quotes , Doubt Quotes

Women have a thirst for order and beauty as for something physical; there is a strange female power of hating ugliness and waste as good men can only hate sin and bad men virtue.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Love Quotes , Hate Quotes

Man is at his tallest when he bows.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Faith Quotes , Men Quotes

We are talking about an artist; and for the enjoyment of the artist the mask must be to some extent moulded on the face. What he makes outside him must correspond to something inside him; he can only make his effects out of some of the materials of his soul.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Art Quotes , Soul Quotes

If a man called Christmas Day a mere hypocritical excuse for drunkenness and gluttony, that would be false, but it would have a fact hidden in it somewhere. But when Bernard Shaw says the Christmas Day is only a conspiracy kept up by poulterers and wine merchants from strictly business motives, then he says something which is not so much false as startling and arrestingly foolish. He might as well say that the two sexes were invented by jewellers who wanted to sell wedding rings.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Christmas Quotes , Sex Quotes

The free man owns himself. He can damage himself with either eating or drinking; he can ruin himself with gambling. If he does he is certainly a damn fool, and he might possibly be a damned soul; but if he may not, he is not a free man any more than a dog.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Dog Quotes , Drinking Quotes

I would look at the first chapter of any new novel as a final test of its merits. If there was a murdered man under the sofa in the first chapter, I read the story. If there was no murdered man under the sofa in the first chapter, I dismissed the story as tea-table twaddle, which it often really was.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Men Quotes , Tea Quotes