Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes

Without authority there is no liberty. Freedom is doomed to destruction at every turn, unless there is a recognized right to freedom. And if there are rights, there is an authority to which we appeal for them.

4 years ago

Message Copied

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

We can’t turn life into a pleasure. But we can choose such pleasures as are worthy of us and our immortal souls.

4 years ago

Message Copied

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

The whole truth is generally the ally of virtue; a half-truth is always the ally of some vice.

4 years ago

Message Copied

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

No sceptical philosopher can ask any questions that may not equally be asked by a tired child on a hot afternoon.

4 years ago

Message Copied

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

Instead of looking at books and pictures about the New Testament I looked at the New Testament. There I found an account, not in the least of a person with his hair parted in the middle or his hands clasped in appeal, but of an extraordinary being with lips of thunder and acts of lurid decision, flinging down tables, casting out devils, passing with the wild secrecy of the wind from mountain isolation to a sort of dreadful demagogy; a being who often acted like an angry god — and always like a god.

4 years ago

Message Copied

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

When we look upon lives so human and yet so small, we feel as if we ourselves were enlarged to an embarrassing bigness of stature. We feel the same kind of obligation to these creatures that a deity might feel if he had created something that he could not understand.

4 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Deities Quotes , Looks 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.

4 years ago

Message Copied

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

But they none of them create the psychological conditions in which I first saw, or desired to see, the flower.

4 years ago

Message Copied

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

Most modern freedom is at root fear. It is not so much that we are too bold to endure rules; it is rather that we are too timid to endure responsibilities.

4 years ago

Message Copied

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

How much happier you would be, how much more of you there would be, if the hammer of a higher God could smash your small cosmos.

4 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Would Be Quotes , Hammers Quotes

A puritan is a person who pours righteous indignation into the wrong things.

4 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Puritan Quotes , Righteous Quotes

It seems a pity that psychology has destroyed all our knowledge of human nature.

4 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Psychology Quotes , Human Nature 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

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

4 years ago

Message Copied

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

...there is in life an element of elfin coincidence which people reckoning on the prosaic may perpetually miss. As it has been well expressed in the paradox of Poe, wisdom should reason on the unforeseen.

4 years ago

Message Copied

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

No man who worships education has got the best out of education... Without a gentle contempt for education no man's education is complete.

4 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Education Quotes , Teaching Quotes

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

4 years ago

Message Copied

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

I don't need a church to tell me I'm wrong where I already know I'm wrong; I need a Church to tell me I'm wrong where I think I'm right

4 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Thinking Quotes , Church Quotes

Religious unity can look like a carnival and religious liberty can look like a funeral.

4 years ago

Message Copied

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

A thing may be too sad to be believed or too wicked to be believed or too good to be believed; but it cannot be too absurd to be believed in this planet of frogs and elephants, of crocodiles and cuttle-fish.

4 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Animal Quotes , Elephants Quotes