Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes

Unless a man becomes the enemy of an evil, he will not even become its slave but rather its champion.

4 years ago

Message Copied

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

Leaving the complications of the human breakfast-table out of account, in an elemental sense, the egg only exists to produce the chicken. But the chicken does not exist only in order to produce another egg. He may also exist to amuse himself, to praise God, and even to suggest ideas to a French dramatist. Being a conscious life, he is, or may be, valuable in himself.

4 years ago

Message Copied

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

Stated baldly, charity certainly means one of two things–pardoning unpardonable acts, or loving unlovable people.

4 years ago

Message Copied

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

Leisure is being allowed to do nothing.

4 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton 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

I don't deny," he said, "that there should be priests to remind men that they will one day die. I only say that at certain strange epochs it is necessary to have another kind of priests, called poets, actually to remind men that they are not dead yet.

4 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Men Quotes , One Day Quotes

Architecture is the alphabet of giants; it is the largest set of symbols ever made to meet the eyes of men. A tower stands up like a sort of simplified stature, of much more than heroic size.

4 years ago

Message Copied

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

How can it be a large career to tell other people's children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one's own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No; a woman's function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute. I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness.

4 years ago

Message Copied

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

Puritanism was an honourable mood; it was a noble fad. In other words, it was a highly creditable mistake.

4 years ago

Message Copied

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

It is true that there is a thing crudely called charity, which means charity to the deserving poor; but charity to the deserving is not charity at all, but justice. It is the undeserving who require it, and the ideal either does not exist at all, or exists wholly for them.

4 years ago

Message Copied

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

humor can get in under the door while seriousness is still fumbling at the handle

4 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Doors Quotes , Seriousness Quotes

Every one on the earth should believe that he has something to give to the world which cannot otherwise be given.

4 years ago

Message Copied

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

Any one thinking of the Holy Child as born in December would mean by it exactly what we mean by it; that Christ is not merely a summer sun of the prosperous but a winter fire for the unfortunate.

4 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Christmas Quotes , Summer Quotes

Such professions as the soldier and the lawyer ... give ample opportunity for crimes but not much for mere illusions. ... If you have lost a battle you cannot believe you have won it; if your client is hanged you cannot pretend that you have gotten him off.

4 years ago

Message Copied

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

The grinding power of the plain words of the Gospel story is like the power of mill-stones, and those who can read them simply enough will feel as if rocks had been rolled upon them.

4 years ago

Message Copied

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

Men may keep a sort of level of good, but no man has ever been able to keep on one level of evil.

4 years ago

Message Copied

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

The more we are proud that the Bethlehem story is plain enough to be understood by the shepherds, and almost by the sheep, the more do we let ourselves go, in dark and gorgeous imaginative frescoes or pageants about the mystery and majesty of the Three Magian Kings.

4 years ago

Message Copied

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

The traveler sees what he sees, the tourist sees what he has come to see.

4 years ago

Message Copied

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