Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes

It is a strange thing that many truly spiritual men, such as General Gordon, have actually spent some hours in speculating upon the precise location of the Garden of Eden. Most probably we are in Eden still. It is only our eyes that have changed.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

Islam was something like a Christian heresy. The early heresies had been full of mad reversals and evasions of the Incarnation, rescuing their Jesus from the reality of his body even at the expense of the sincerity of his soul.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Christian Quotes , Jesus Quotes

According to most philosophers, God in making the world enslaved it. According to Christianity, in making it, He set it free. God had written, not so much a poem, but rather a play; a play he had planned as perfect, but which had necessarily been left to human actors and stage-managers, who had since made a great mess of it.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

The rolling stone rolls echoing from rock to rock; but the rolling stone is dead. The moss is silent because the moss is alive.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Rocks Quotes , Moss 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.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

I am more than a devil; I am a man. I can do the one thing which Satan himself cannot do— I can die.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

There are a good many fools who call me a friend, and also a good many friends who call me a fool.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Funny Friendship Quotes , Good Man Quotes

Earnest Freethinkers need not worry themselves so much about the persecutions of the past. Before the Liberal idea is dead or triumphant we shall see wars and persecutions the like of which the world has never seen.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

It isn't that they can't see the solution. It is that they can't see the problem.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Funny Quotes , Math Quotes

I like the Americans for a great many reasons. I like them because even the modern thing called industrialism has not entirely destroyed in them the very ancient thing called democracy. I like them because they have a respect for work which really curbs the human tendency to snobbishness.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , America Quotes , Democracy Quotes

The more I considered Christianity, the more I found that while it had established a rule and order, the chief aim of that order was to give room for good things to run wild.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

We have had no good comic operas of late, because the real world has been more comic than any possible opera.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

Only friendliness produces friendship. And we must look far deeper into the soul of man for the thing that produces friendliness.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

Then I only wondered who put the toys in the stocking; now I wonder who put the stocking by the bed, and the bed in the room, and the room in the house, and the house on the planet, and the great planet in the void.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , House Quotes , Bed Quotes

I have myself a poetical enthusiasm for pigs, and the paradise of my fancy is one where pigs have wings. But it is only men, especially wise men, who discuss whether pigs can fly; we have no particular proof that pigs ever discuss it.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

Aesthetes never do anything but what they are told.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes

The great ideals of the past failed not by being outlived (which must mean over-lived), but by not being lived enough. Mankind has not passed through the Middle Ages. Rather mankind has retreated from the Middle Ages in reaction and rout. The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

Individually, men may present a more or less rational appearance, eating, sleeping, and scheming. But humanity a a whole is changeful, mystical, fickle, delightful. Men are men, but Man is a woman.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

THERE are no wise few; for in all men rages the folly of the Fall. Take your strongest, happiest, handsomest, best born, best bred, best instructed men on earth and give them special power for half an hour and because they are men they will begin to [perform] badly.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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