Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes

I will not call it my philosophy; for I did not make it. God and humanity made it; and it made me.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

A great classic means a man whom one can praise without having read.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

I don't deny," he said, "that there should be priests to remind men that they will one day die. I only say that at certain strange epochs it is necessary to have another kind of priests, called poets, actually to remind men that they are not dead yet.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Men Quotes , One Day Quotes

Aristocracy is an atmosphere; it is sometimes a healthy atmosphere; but it is very hard to say when it becomes an unhealthy atmosphere. You can prove that a man is not the son of a king, or that he is not the delegate of a definite number of people. But you cannot prove that a man is not a gentleman.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Kings Quotes , Son Quotes

It is the root of all religion that a man knows that he is nothing in order to thank God that he is something.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

Physical science is like simple addition: it is either infallible or it is false.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Simple Quotes , Infallible Quotes

A small artist is content with art; a great artist is content with nothing except everything.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

Reason is always a kind of brute force; those who appeal to the head rather than the heart, however pallid and polite, are necessarily men of violence. We speak of 'touching' a man's heart, but we can do nothing to his head but hit it.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

CIVILISATION is not to be judged by the rapidity of communication, but by the value of what is communicated.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Communication Quotes , Civilisation Quotes

How can it be a large career to tell other people's children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one's own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No; a woman's function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute. I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Children Quotes , Motherhood Quotes

What was wonderful about childhood is that anything in it was a wonder. It was not merely a world full of miracles; it was a miraculous world.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Childhood Quotes , Miracle Quotes

But pure wit is akin to Puritanism; to the perfect and painful consciousness of the final fact in the universe. Very briefly, the man who sees the consistency in things is a wit - and a Calvinist. The man who sees the inconsistency in things is a humorist - and a Catholic.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

A man who says that no patriot should attack the Boer War until it is over is not worth answering intelligently; he is saying that no good son should warn his mother off a cliff until she has fallen over it.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Mother Quotes , Peace Quotes

Real development is not leaving things behind, as on a road, but drawing life from them, as from a root.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Real Quotes , Roots Quotes

There is only one thing certain and that is that nothing is certain

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Certain Quotes

Surely we cannot take an open question like the supernatural and shut it with a bang, turning the key of the madhouse on all the mystics of history. You cannot take the region of the unknown and calmly say that, though you know nothing about it, you know all the gates are locked. We do not know enough about the unknown to know that it is unknowable.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Keys Quotes , Bangs Quotes

Men invent new ideals because they dare not attempt old ideals. They look forward with enthusiasm, because they are afraid to look back.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

What embitters the world is not excess of criticism, but absence of self-criticism.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Self Quotes , Criticism Quotes

Were Patrick Henry to return to earth and look around on the vast economic order of the day, he might revise his observation and merely say ‘Give me death’-the alternative being manifestly impossible under modern conditions.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Order Quotes , Giving Quotes

The central idea of poetry is the idea of guessing right, like a child.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Children Quotes , Ideas Quotes