Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes

We call a man a bigot or a slave of dogma because he is a thinker who has thought thoroughly and to a definite end.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

Every one of the great revolutionists, from Isaiah to Shelley, have been optimists. They have been indignant, not about the badness of existence, but about the slowness of men in realizing its goodness.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

The only object of liberty is life.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Liberty Quotes

A good Moslem king was one who was strict in religion, valiant in battle, just in giving judgment among his people, but not one who had the slightest objection in international matters to removing his neighbour's landmark.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

You!" he cried. "You never hated because you never lived. I know what you are all of you, from first to last--you are the people in power! You are the police--the great, fat smiling men in blue and buttons! You are the Law, and you have never been broken. But is there a free soul alive that does not long to break you, only because you have never been broken?

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

By experts in poverty I do not mean sociologists, but poor men.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

I've been to every park in every city and not seen a statue to a committee.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Cities Quotes , Parks Quotes

Nine times out of ten it is the coarse word that condemns an evil, and the refined word that excuses it.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

The Frenchman works until he can play. The American works until he can’t play; and then thanks the devil, his master, that he is donkey enough to die in harness. But the Englishman, as he has since become, works until he can pretend that he never worked at all.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

All slang is metaphor, and all metaphor is poetry.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

Passion makes every detail important.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Passion Quotes , Important Quotes

All science, even the divine science, is a sublime detective story. Only it is not set to detect why a man is dead; but the darker secret of why he is alive.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

Materialists and madmen never have doubts.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

It was the mystical dogma of Bentham and Adam Smith and the rest, that some of the worst of human passions would turn out to be all for the best. It was the mysterious doctrine that selfishness would do the work of unselfishness.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Passion Quotes , Selfishness Quotes

Let us not decide what is good, but let it be considered good not to decide it.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes

There is, therefore, about all complete conviction a kind of huge helplessness.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Kind Quotes , Conviction Quotes

If you happen to read fairy tales, you will observe that one idea runs from one end of them to the other--the idea that peace and happiness can only exist on some condition. This idea, which is the core of ethics, is the core of the nursery-tales.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

A turkey is more occult and awful than all the angels and archangels. In so far as God has partly revealed to us an angelic world, he has partly told us what an angel means. But God has never told us what a turkey means. And if you go and stare at a live turkey for an hour or two, you will find by the end of it that the enigma has rather increased than diminished.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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

Madness does not come by breaking out, but by giving in; by settling down in some dirty, little, self-repeating circle of ideas; by being tamed.

5 years ago

Message Copied

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