“Is literature better, is politics better, for having discarded the moralist and the philosopher?” — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“In one sense at any rate it is more valuable to read bad literature than good literature. Good literature may tell us… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“The only possible excuse for this book is that it is an answer to a challenge. Even a bad shot is dignified… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“The ordinary detective discovers from a ledger or a diary that a crime has been committed. We discover from a book of… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“What are blue-stockings?' asked Tommy. Naturally you don't know,' replied the other. 'If you did, you would sympathize more with Bluebeard. They… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“The author challenges how much sanctity has to do with sameness, as he says saints are as different from each other as… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“It was the outstanding fact about St. Thomas [Aquinas] that he loved books and lived on books ... When asked for what… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“A finished tale may give a man immortality in the light and literary sense; but an unfinished tale suggests another immortality, more… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“A man reading the Dickens novel wished that it might never end. Men read a Dickens story six times because they knew… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“They are constantly colonists and emigrants ; they have the name of being at home in every country. But they are in… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“Whatever the word "great" means, Dickens was what it means. Even the fastidious and unhappy who cannot read his books without a… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“Nothing is important except the fate of the soul; and literature is only redeemed from an utter triviality ... by the fact… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“If you want to succeed at whist, either be a good whist-player, or play with marked cards. You may want a book… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“You can find all the new ideas in the old books; only there you will find them balanced, kept in their place,… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“I earnestly hope that all children will spoil this book by painting the illustrations. I wanted to do this myself but the… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“I have been asked to explain what I meant by saying that "Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity." I have… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children's games from the beginning, and will… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“America is the only nation in the world that is founded on a creed. That creed is set forth with dogmatic and… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“There has appeared in our time a particular class of books and articles which I sincerely and solemnly think may be called… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“We have all read in scientific books, and, indeed, in all romances, the story of the man who has forgotten his name.… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labours, and holidays; to be Whitely within a certain area, providing… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“Just as we all like love tales because there is an instinct of sex, we all like astonishing tales because they touch… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“I cannot understand the people who take literature seriously; but I can love them, and I do. Out of my love I… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“People wonder why the novel is the most popular form of literature; people wonder why it is read more than books of… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“Liberalism has been degraded into liberality. Men have tried to turn "revolutionise" from a transitive to an intransitive verb. The Jacobin could… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“But there is another possible attitude towards the records of the past, and I have never been able to understand why it… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“To-day all our novels and newspapers will be found to be swarming with numberless allusions to the popular character called a Cave-Man.… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“Does the reader realise the despair that falls upon the hapless Catholic journalist at such moments; or how wild a prayer he… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“We read a good novel not in order to know more people, but in order to know fewer. Instead of the humming… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“In one sense, at any rate, it is more valuable to read bad literature than good literature. Good literature may tell us… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“And as I close this chaotic volume I open again the strange small book from which all Christianity came; and I am… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“The present importance of the Book of Job cannot be expressed adequately even by saying that it is the most interesting of… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“I have called this book "What Is Wrong with the World?" and the upshot of the title can be easily and clearly… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“La sua logica è straordinariamente lucida e fredda e invariabilmente lo porta fuori strada. Ma all'improvviso interviene la poesia in lui a… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“Somewhere embedded in every ordinary book are the five or six words for which really all the rest will be written.” — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“If the characters are not wicked, the book is." We must tell stories the way God does, stories in which a sister… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“All the terms used in the science books, 'law,' 'necessity,' 'order,' 'tendency,' and so on, are really unintellectual … The only words… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“I never use paradox. The statements I make are wearisome and obvious common sense. I have even been driven to the tedium of reading… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share
“Nothing, again, could be more prosaic and impenetrable than the domestic energies of Miss Diana Duke. But Innocent had somehow blundered on the discovery… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share
“The mass of men have been forced to be gay about the little things, but sad about the big ones. Nevertheless (I offer my… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share
“ask yourself how many people you have met who grumbled at a thing as incurable, and how many who attacked it as curable? How… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share
“The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children's games from the beginning, and will probably do… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share
“Internationalism is in any case hostile to democracy….The only purely popular government is local, and founded on local knowledge. The citizens can rule the… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share
“There was a short railway official travelling up to the terminus, three fairly short market-gardeners picked up two stations afterwards, one very short widow… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share
“Humility is the mother of giants. One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak.” — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share
“There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share
“Man, by a blind instinct, knew that if once things were wildly questioned, reason could be questioned first. The authority of priests to absolve,… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share
“It is idle to talk always of the alternative of reason and faith. Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share
“But in order that life should be a story or romance to us, it is necessary that a great part of it, at any… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share
“Buddhism seeks after God with the largest conception it can find, the all-producing and all-absorbing One; Christianity seeks after God with the most elementary… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share
“Man is more himself, more manlike, when joy is the fundamental thing and grief superficial.” — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share
![“It was the outstanding fact about St. Thomas [Aquinas] that he loved books and lived on books ... When asked for what he thanked God most, he answered simply, ‘I have understood every page I ever read’.” quote by G.K. Chesterton](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/dac/g-k-chesterton-224_aquinas_it-was-the-outstanding-fact-about-st-tho_2751632.jpg)
