The most dangerous criminal now is the entirely lawless modern philosopher. Compared to him, burglars and bigamists are essentially moral men. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Men feel that cruelty to the poor is a kind of cruelty to animals. They never feel that it is an injustice… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
The materialist theory of history, that all politics and ethics are the expression of economics, is a very simple fallacy indeed. It… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
...it is not necessary to the child to awaken to the sense of the strange and humorous by giving a man a… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
In the modern conflict between the Smile and the Laugh, I am all in favor of laughing. The recent stage of culture… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
When it wishes anything done which is really serious, it collects twelve of the ordinary men standing round. The same thing was… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Ingratitude is surely the chief of the intellectual sins of man. He takes his political benefits for granted, just as he takes… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
But pure wit is akin to Puritanism; to the perfect and painful consciousness of the final fact in the universe. Very briefly,… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Mr. Blatchford says that there was not a Fall but a gradual rise. But the very word "rise" implies that you know… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
In every serious doctrine of the destiny of men, there is some trace of the doctrine of the equality of men. But… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Men can construct a science with very few instruments, or with very plain instruments; but no one on earth could construct a… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
But a somewhat more liberal and sympathetic examination of mankind will convince us that the cross is even older than the gibbet,… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
You've got that eternal idiotic idea that if anarchy came it would come from the poor. Why should it? The poor have… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
[There is] one distinctly human thing - the story. There can be as good science about a turnip as about a man.… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
What we suffer from today is humility in the wrong place...The old humility was a spur that prevented a man from stopping;… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Ideas are dangerous, but the man to whom they are least dangerous is the man of ideas. He is acquainted with ideas,… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
A great deal of contemporary criticism reads to me like a man saying, 'Of course I do not like green cheese. I… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Women have a thirst for order and beauty as for something physical; there is a strange female power of hating ugliness and… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
The Christian pities men because they are dying, and the Buddhist pities them because they are living. The Christian is sorry for… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
A man who says that no patriot should attack the Boer War until it is over is not worth answering intelligently; he… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Boyhood is a most complex and incomprehensible thing. Even when one has been through it, one does not understand what it was.… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Instead of the machine being a giant to which the man is the pygmy, we must at last reverse the proportions until… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
We have passed the age of the demagogue, the man who has little to say and says it loud. We have come… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
I have myself a poetical enthusiasm for pigs, and the paradise of my fancy is one where pigs have wings. But it… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Only men to whom the family is sacred will ever have a standard or a status by which to criticize the State.… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
The greatest political storm flutters only a fringe of humanity. But an ordinary man and an ordinary woman and their ordinary children… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
There is a road from the eye to the heart that does not go through the intellect. Men do not quarrel about… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
The men of the clique live together because they have the same kind of soul, and their narrowness is a narrowness of… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
The disadvantage of men not knowing the past is that they do not know the present. History is a hill or high… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
A child's instinct is almost perfect in the matter of fighting. The child's hero is always the man or boy who defends… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
There is no better test of a man's ultimate chivalry and integrity than how he behaves when he is wrong... A stiff… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Unless a man starts afresh about things, he will certainly do nothing effective. Unless a man starts on the strange assumption that… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
The artistic temperament is a disease that afflicts amateurs. It is a disease which arises from men no having sufficient power of… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Architecture is the alphabet of giants; it is the largest set of symbols ever made to meet the eyes of men. A… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
All men thirst to confess their crimes more than tired beasts thirst for water; but they naturally object to confessing them while… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
A man imagines a happy marriage as a marriage of love; even if he makes fun of marriages that are without love,… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
A cosmic philosophy is not constructed to fit a man; a cosmic philosophy is constructed to fit a cosmos. A man can… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
There are two kinds of charlatan: the man who is called a charlatan, and the man who really is one. The first… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
A man looking at a hippopotamus may sometimes be tempted to regard a hippopotamus as an enormous mistake; but he is also… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
So far as a man may be proud of a religion rooted in humility, I am very proud of my religion; I… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
The aim of good prose words is to mean what they say. The aim of good poetical words is to mean what they do… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share
Youth is always too serious, and just now it is too serious about frivolity. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share
Tradition does not mean a dead town; it does not mean that the living are dead but that the dead are alive. It means… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share
It is shorter to state the things forbidden than the things permitted; precisely because most things are permitted and only a few things forbidden. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share
Everyone seems to assume that the unscrupulous parts of journalism will be the frivolous or jocular parts. This is against all ethical experience. Jokes… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share
For Scotland has a double dose of the poison called heredity; the sense of blood in the aristocrat, the sense of doom in the… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share
Faith is always at a disadvantage; it is a perpetually defeated thing which survives all conquerors. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share
A building is akin to dogma; it is insolent, like dogma. Whether or no it is permanent, it claims permanence, like a dogma. People… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share
The triangle of truisms, of father, mother and child, cannot be destroyed; it can only destroy those civilizations which disregard it. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share
Criticism is only words about words, and of what use are words about such words as these? — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share
What we suffer from today is humility in the wrong place...The old humility was a spur that prevented a man from stopping; not a… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share
Plato was only a Bernard Shaw who unfortunately made his jokes in Greek. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share
Music with dinner is an insult both to the cook and the violinist. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share
Eugenics asserts that all men must be so stupid that they cannot manage their own affairs; and also so clever that they can manage… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share
![“[There is] one distinctly human thing - the story. There can be as good science about a turnip as about a man. ... [Or philosophy, or theology] ...There can be, without any question at all, as good higher mathematics about a turnip as about a man. But I do not think, though I speak in a manner…” quote by Gilbert K. Chesterton](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/05b/gilbert-k-chesterton-223_accounts_there-is-one-distinctly-human-thing-the_3013143.jpg)
