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Religion Quotes by Gilbert K. Chesterton

57 Religion quotes by Gilbert K. Chesterton

All Religion quotes Gilbert K. Chesterton’s page

Chesterton notes that a good religion can even be a joke, showing that humor tests belief. He says the Church’s uniqueness can’t be proved by comparison, and that doubting turns truth into dogma. He also points out that preaching and living don’t always match, reminding us that faith can be messy.

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Theology is only thought applied to religion.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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Faith means believing the unbelievable.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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Coincidence is a spiritual pun.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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Coincidences are spiritual puns.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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A faith is that which is able to survive a mood.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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One can no more have a private religion than one can have a private sun or a private moon.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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The danger of loss of faith in God is not that one will believe in nothing, but rather that one will believe…

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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Truths turn into dogmas the instant that they are disputed. Thus every man who utters a doubt defines a religion.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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Happiness is a mystery, like religion, and should never be rationalised.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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It is the root of all religion that a man knows that he is nothing in order to thank God that he…

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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The philosophy of this world may be founded on facts, but its business is run on spiritual impressions and atmospheres.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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Facts as facts do not always create a spirit of reality, because reality is a spirit.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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Christianity even when watered down is hot enough to boil all modern society to rags.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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Christianity, whatever else it is, is an explosion. Unless it is sensational there is simply no sense in it. Unless the Gospel…

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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Idolatry is committed, not merely by setting up false gods, but also by setting up false devils; by making men afraid of…

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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A good Moslem king was one who was strict in religion, valiant in battle, just in giving judgment among his people, but…

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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ONCE remove the old arena of theological quarrels, and you will throw open the whole world to the most horrible, the most…

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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It is because artists do not practise, patrons do not patronize, crowds do not assemble to reverently worship the great work of…

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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Hope means hoping when things are hopeless, or it is no virtue at all. And faith means believing the incredible, or it…

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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The historic glory of America lies in the fact that it is the one nation that was founded like a church. That…

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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It is a strange thing that many truly spiritual men, such as General Gordon, have actually spent some hours in speculating upon…

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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Religious and philosophical beliefs are, indeed, as dangerous as fire, and nothing can take from them that beauty of danger. But there…

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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Science boasts of the distance of its stars; of the terrific remoteness of the things of which it has to speak. But…

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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Modern masters of science are much impressed with the need of beginning all inquiry with a fact. The ancient masters of religion…

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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But the truth is that it is only by believing in God that we can ever criticize the government. Once abolish the…

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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When people talk as if the Crusades were nothing more than an aggressive raid against Islam, they seem to forget in the…

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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The Christian is quite free to believe that there is a considerable amount of settled order and inevitable development in the universe.…

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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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

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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

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We do not want, as the newspapers say, a church that will move with the world. We want a church that will…

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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The old religionist cried out for his god. The new religionist cries out for some god to be his.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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Facts by themselves can often feed the flame of madness, because sanity is a spirit.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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Religious unity can look like a carnival and religious liberty can look like a funeral.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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Theology is simply that part of religion that requires brains.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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If I had only one sermon to preach it would be a sermon against pride.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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Catholic doctrine and discipline may be walls; but they are the walls of a playground.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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The coziness between church and state is good for the state and bad for the church

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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I may not practice what I preach but God forbid I should preach what I practice

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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The sort of man who admires Italian art while despising Italian religion is a tourist and a cad.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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More by Gilbert K. Chesterton

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

Youth is always too serious, and just now it is too serious about frivolity.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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

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

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

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

Faith is always at a disadvantage; it is a perpetually defeated thing which survives all conquerors.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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

The triangle of truisms, of father, mother and child, cannot be destroyed; it can only destroy those civilizations which disregard it.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Criticism is only words about words, and of what use are words about such words as these?

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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

Plato was only a Bernard Shaw who unfortunately made his jokes in Greek.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

The word good has many meanings...

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Music with dinner is an insult both to the cook and the violinist.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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