Gilbert K. Chesterton 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

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

Tradition does not mean a dead town; it does not mean that the living are dead but that the dead are alive. It means that it still matters what Penn did two hundred years ago or what Franklin did a hundred years ago; I never could feel in New York that it mattered what anybody did an hour ago.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , New York Quotes , Mean Quotes

Whatever else we may say of our own age, for good or evil, nobody is likely to call it an Age of Reason.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Evil Quotes , Age Quotes

if a man would make his world large, he must be always making himself small.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

A sober man may become a drunkard through being a coward. A brave man may become a coward through being a drunkard.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

The best way that a man could test his readiness to encounter the common variety of mankind would be to climb down a chimney into any house at random, and get on as well as possible with the people inside. And that is essentially what each one of us did on the day that he was born.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

Why do all the clerks and navvies in the railway trains look so sad and tired, so very sad and tired? I will tell you. It is because they know that the train is going right. It is because they know that whatever place they have taken a ticket for that place they will reach. It is because after they have passed Sloane Square they know that the next station must be Victoria, and nothing but Victoria. Oh, their wild rapture! oh, their eyes like stars and their souls again in Eden, if the next station were unaccountably Baker Street!

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Stars Quotes , Taken Quotes

Why be something to everybody when you can be everything to somebody?

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes

There is no way in which a man can earn a star or deserve a sunset.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Stars Quotes , Sunset Quotes

Ivory may not be so white as snow, but the whole Arctic continent does not make ivory black.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Ivory Quotes , White Quotes

A good civilisation spreads over us freely like a tree, varying and yielding because it is alive. A bad civilisation stands up and sticks out above us like an umbrella-artificial, mathematical in shape; not merely universal, but uniform.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Civilization Quotes , Tree Quotes

There is only one reason an intelligent person doesn't believe in miracles. He or she believes in materialism.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

The point is not that this world is too sad to love or too glad not to love; the point is that when you do love a thing, its gladness is a reason for loving it, and its sadness a reason for loving it more.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Sadness Quotes , World Quotes

There is no bigot like the atheist.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Atheist Quotes

There is no great harm in the theorist who makes up a new theory to fit a new event. But the theorist who starts with a false theory and then sees everything as making it come true is the most dangerous enemy of human reason.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

You could compile the worst book in the world entirely out of selected passages from the best writers in the world.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Book Quotes , Writing Quotes

If Christianity should happen to be true - that is to say, if its God is the real God of the universe - then defending it may mean talking about anything and everything.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

I am a bad reporter because everything seems to me worth reporting; and a bad reviewer because every sentence in every book suggests a separate essay.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Book Quotes , Essays Quotes

One of the great disadvantages of hurry is that it takes such a long time.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Life Quotes , Time Quotes