Men rush towards complexity, but they yearn towards simplicity. They try to be kings; but they dream of being shepherds. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
The modern world... has no notion except that of simplifying something by destroying nearly everything. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
To be simple is the best thing in the world; to be modest is the next best thing. I am not sure… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
For my part, I should be inclined to suggest that the chief object of education should be to restore simplicity. If you… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
As an explanation of the world materialism has a sort of insane simplicity. It has the quality of a madman's arguments; we… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
We all know that the 'divine glory of the ego' is socially a great nuisance; we all do actually value our friends… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Americans are a very backward people, with all the real virtues of a backward people; the patriarchal simplicity and human dignity of… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Sir Hiram Maxim is a genuine and typical example of the man of science, romantic, excitable, full of real but somewhat obvious… — 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
