Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes

The life of a thinking man will probably be divided into two parts -- the first in which he desires to exterminate modern thinkers, and the second in which he desires to watch them exterminating each other. ... Suppose, for instance, there is an old story and a new skeptic who is skeptical of the story. We have only to wait a little while for a yet newer skeptic who is skeptical of the skeptic. He will probably find the old notion actually a help in his new notion. This process is an abstract truth applying to anything, apart from agreement or disagreement.

4 years ago

Message Copied

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

Architecture approaches nearer than any other art to being irrevocable because it is so difficult to get rid of.

4 years ago

Message Copied

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

All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death.

4 years ago

Message Copied

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

In every serious doctrine of the destiny of men, there is some trace of the doctrine of the equality of men. But the capitalist really depends on some religion of inequality. The capitalist must somehow distinguish himself from human kind; he must be obviously above it or he would be obviously below it.

4 years ago

Message Copied

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

Art is the signature of man.

4 years ago

Message Copied

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

I do not feel any contempt for an atheist, who is often a man limited and constrained by his own logic to a very sad simplification.

4 years ago

Message Copied

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

This is, first and last, the real value of Christmas; in so far as the mythology remains at all it is a kind of happy mythology. Personally, of course, I believe in Santa Claus; but it is the season of forgiveness, and I will forgive others for not doing so.

4 years ago

Message Copied

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

Buddhism is not a creed, it is a doubt.

4 years ago

Message Copied

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

I have little doubt that when St. George had killed the dragon he was heartily afraid of the princess.

4 years ago

Message Copied

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

It's not the world that's got so much worse but the news coverage that's got so much better.

4 years ago

Message Copied

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

I would give a woman not more rights, but more privileges. Instead of sending her to seek such freedom as notoriously prevails in banks and factories, I would design specially a house in which she can be free.

4 years ago

Message Copied

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

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

4 years ago

Message Copied

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

We must be clear about what we want to paint. This adds a further principle to our previous list of principles. We have said we must be fond of this world, even in order to change it.

4 years ago

Message Copied

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

How quickly revolutions grow old; and, worse still, respectable.

4 years ago

Message Copied

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

Modern toleration is really a tyranny. It is a tyranny because it is a silence.

4 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Silence Quotes , Modern Quotes

Literary men are being employed to praise a big business man personally, as men used to praise a king. They not only find political reasons for the commercial schemes that they have done for some time past they also find moral defences for the commercial schemers... I do resent the whole age of patronage being revived under such absurd patrons; and all poets becoming court poets, under kings that have taken no oath.

4 years ago

Message Copied

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

None of the modern machines, none of the modern paraphernalia. . . have any power except over the people who choose to use them.

4 years ago

Message Copied

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

The wise old fairy tales never were so silly as to say that the prince and the princess lived peacefully ever afterwards. The fairy tales said that the prince and princess lived happily ever afterwards; and so they did. They lived happily, although it is very likely that from time to time they threw the furniture at each other.

4 years ago

Message Copied

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

Every man who will not have softening of the heart must at last have softening of the brain

4 years ago

Message Copied

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

Excuse me if I enjoy myself rather obviously! I don't often have the luck to have a dream like this. It is new to me for a nightmare to lead me to a lobster. It is commonly the other way.

4 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Dream Quotes , Luck Quotes