“Happiness is a state of the soul; a state in which our natures are full of the wine of an ancient youth,… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Those might not be the very best judges of the relation of religion to happiness who, by their own account, had neither… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“Does it never strike you that doubt can be a madness, as well as faith? That asking questions may be a disease,… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“Life (according to the faith) is very like a serial story in a magazine: life ends with the promise (or menace) "to… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“In short, the democratic faith is this: that the most terribly important things must be left to ordinary men themselves—the mating of… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“Charity means pardoning what is unpardonable, or it is no virtue at all. Hope means hoping when things are hopeless, or it… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“For our Titanic purposes of faith and revolution, what we need is not the cold acceptance of the world as a compromise,… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“Blasphemy is an artistic effect, because blasphemy depends upon a philosophical conviction. Blasphemy depends upon belief and is fading with it. If… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“What we suffer from today is humility in the wrong place. Modesty has moved from the organ of ambition and settled upon… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“I mean that we here are on the wrong side of the tapestry,' answered Father Brown. 'The things that happen here do… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“It is idle to talk always of the alternative of reason and faith. Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“You do believe it,' he said. 'You do believe everything. We all believe everything, even when we deny everything. The denyers believe.… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“The pagan, or rational, virtues are such things as justice and temperance, and Christianity has adopted them. The three mystical virtues which… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“Briefly, this human belief in a sexual bond rests on a principle of which the modern mind has made a very inadequate… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“For most people there is a fascinating inconsistency in the position of St. Francis. He expressed in loftier and bolder language than… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“When the business man rebukes the idealism of his office-boy, it is commonly in some such speech as this: "Ah, yes, when… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“Charity means pardoning what is unpardonable, or it is no virtue at all. Hope means hoping when things are hopeless, or it… — 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
