Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes

The danger of loss of faith in God is not that one will believe in nothing, but rather that one will believe in anything.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

Altruists, with thin, weak voices, denounce Christ as an egoist. Egoists (with even thinner and weaker voices) denounce Him as an altruist.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Voice Quotes , Christ Quotes

The sincere love of books has nothing to do with cleverness or stupidity any more than any other sincere love. It is a quality of character, a freshness, a power of pleasure, a power of faith. A silly person may delight in reading masterpieces just as a silly person may delight in picking flowers. A fool may be in love with a poet as he may be in love with a woman.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Flower Quotes , Silly Quotes

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

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Annoyed Quotes , Literature Quotes

A man looking at a hippopotamus may sometimes be tempted to regard a hippopotamus as an enormous mistake; but he is also bound to confess that a fortunate inferiority prevents him personally from making such mistakes.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

And Noah he often said to his wife when he sat down to dine, "I don't care where the water goes if it doesn't get into the wine."

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Wine Quotes , Water Quotes

Pessimism is not in being tired of evil but in being tired of good. Despair does not lie in being weary of suffering, but in being weary of joy. It is when for some reason or other good things in a society no longer work that the society begins to decline; when its food does not feed, when its cures do not cure, when its blessings refuse to bless.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Lying Quotes , Tired Quotes

Before the Roman came to Rye or out to severn strode, / The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Rolling Quotes , Made Quotes

That all war is physically frightful is obvious; but if that were a moral verdict, there would be no difference between a torturer and a surgeon. There are certain intellectuals who are too bright to be content with merely praising peace but who are infuriated by anybody praising war. If no war is possible, all criminality has its chance

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , War Quotes , Differences Quotes

Every man is important if he loses his life;and every man is funny if he loses his hat and has to run after it.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

The sort of man who admires Italian art while despising Italian religion is a tourist and a cad.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

Big Business and State Socialism are very much alike, especially Big Business.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Business Quotes , Socialism Quotes

It might reasonably be maintained that the true object of all human life is play. Earth is a task garden; heaven is a playground. To be at last in such secure innocence that one can juggle with the universe and the stars, to be so good that one can treat everything as a joke - that may be, perhaps, the real end and final holiday of human souls.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

Spring never is spring unless it comes too soon.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Nature Quotes , Spring Quotes

I never could see anything wrong in sensationalism; and I am sure our society is suffering more from secrecy than from flamboyant revelations.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Suffering Quotes , Our Society Quotes

Modern nature-worship is all upside down. Trees and fields ought to be the ordinary things; terraces and temples ought to be extraordinary. I am on the side of the man who lives in the country and wants to go to London.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Country Quotes , Nature Quotes

The philosophy of this world may be founded on facts, but its business is run on spiritual impressions and atmospheres.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

Catholicism is not ritualism; it may in the future be fighting some sort of superstitious and idolatrous exaggeration of ritual. Catholicism is not asceticism; it has again and again in the past repressed fanatical and cruel exaggerations of asceticism. Catholicism is not mere mysticism; it is even now defending human reason against the mere mysticism of the Pragmatists.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Fighting Quotes , Past Quotes

If we want to give poor people soap we must set out deliberately to give them luxuries. If we will not make them rich enough to be clean, then empathically we must do what we did with the saints. We must reverence them for being dirty.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Dirty Quotes , Luxury Quotes

The voice of the special rebels and prophets, recommending discontent, should, as I have said, sound now and then suddenly, like a trumpet. But the voices of the saints and sages, recommending contentment, should sound unceasingly, like the sea.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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