“We have not to crown the exceptional man who knows he can rule; rather we must crown the much more exceptional man… — G.K. Chesterton Crown Copy Share Image
“I might point out that the rich do not so much buy honesty as curtains to cover dishonesty.” — G.K. Chesterton Dishonesty 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 Books Copy Share Image
“Men may keep a sort of level of good, but no man has ever been able to keep on one level of… — G.K. Chesterton Evil Copy Share Image
“The moderns say we must not punish heretics. My only doubt is whether we have the right to punish anybody else.” — G.K. Chesterton Anarchy Copy Share Image
“There is a thought that stops thought. That is the only thought that ought to be stopped.” — G.K. Chesterton Thought Copy Share Image
“Is literature better, is politics better, for having discarded the moralist and the philosopher?” — G.K. Chesterton Books Copy Share Image
“Whenever he gives advice it is always something as startling as an epigram, and yet as practical as the Bank of England.” — G.K. Chesterton Phrasing Copy Share Image
“The common conception among the dregs of Darwinian culture is that men have slowly worked their way out of inequality into a… — G.K. Chesterton Darwinian Copy Share Image
“Mysticism conceives something transcending experience; religion seeks glimpses of a better good or a worse evil than experience can give. Reincarnation need… — G.K. Chesterton Mysticism 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
“But though some punishments are more inhuman than others there is no such thing as humane punishment. As long as nineteen men… — G.K. Chesterton Punishments Copy Share Image
“When I had a look at the lights of Broadway by night, I said to my American friends : "What a glorious… — G.K. Chesterton Broadway Copy Share Image
“Some dogma, we are told, was credible in the twelfth century, but is not credible in the twentieth. You might as well… — G.K. Chesterton Monday Copy Share Image
“Father Brown got to his feet, putting his hands behind him. 'Odd, isn't it,' he said, 'that a thief and a vagabond… — G.K. Chesterton Lowly Copy Share Image
“the sixteenth-century schism was really a belated revolt of the thirteenth-century pessimists. It was a back-wash of the old Augustinian Puritanism against… — G.K. Chesterton Revolution Copy Share Image
“Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to… — G.K. Chesterton Culture Copy Share Image
“The International Idea, The largest and the clearest, Is welding all the nations now, Except the one that’s nearest. This compromise has… — G.K. Chesterton Forgiveness Copy Share Image
“Nine times out of ten a man’s broad-mindedness is necessarily the narrowest thing about him. This is not particularly paradoxical; it is,… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“I suppose I do deserve it; for not noticing the nearest helpers I have. But you must admit the accumulation of incidents… — G.K. Chesterton Blank page Copy Share Image
“The world can be made beautiful again by viewing it as a battlefield. When we have defined and isolated the evil things,… — G.K. Chesterton Apocalypse Copy Share Image
“Is that all?" asked Flambeau after a long pause. "Have we got to the dull truth at last?" "Oh, no," said Father… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“The weak point in the whole of Carlyle's case for aristocracy lies, indeed, in his most celebrated phrase. Carlyle said that men… — G.K. Chesterton Original sin Copy Share Image
“I could not understand why these romancers never took the trouble to find out a few elementary facts about the thing they… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“People always brag about their vices; it is when they begin to brag about their virtues that they become insufferable.” — G.K. Chesterton Character Copy Share Image
“Humility is the mother of giants. One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak.” — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“Being surrounded with every conceivable kind of revolt from infancy, Gabriel had to revolt into something, so he revolted into the only… — G.K. Chesterton Revolt Copy Share Image
“Of the last two friends of yours who had the modern mind; one thought it wrong to eat fishes and the other… — G.K. Chesterton Fish Copy Share Image
“We are in the presence of a thousand lies all pointing with their fantastic fingers to one undiscovered truth.” — G.K. Chesterton Lies Copy Share Image
“Being a nation means standing up to your equals, whereas being an empire only means kicking your inferiors.” — G.K. Chesterton Empire Copy Share Image
“Complete self-confidence is not merely a sin; complete self-confidence is a weakness.” — G.K. Chesterton Confidence Copy Share Image
“As if everyone did not know that while saints can afford to be dirty, seducers have to be clean.” — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“We say that the dangerous criminal is the educated criminal. We say that the most dangerous criminal now is the entirely lawless… — G.K. Chesterton Crime Copy Share Image
“We are in this fairyland on sufferance; it is not for us to quarrel with the conditions under which we enjoy this… — G.K. Chesterton Dreams Copy Share Image
“The huge modern heresy is to alter the human soul to fit modern social conditions, instead of altering modern social conditions to… — G.K. Chesterton Heresy Copy Share Image
“Life was a fly that faded, and death a drone that stung; The world was very old indeed when you and I… — G.K. Chesterton Death Copy Share Image
“Let us then, by all means, be proud of the virtues that we have not got; but let us not be too… — G.K. Chesterton Character Copy Share Image
“I dare say that when I get out of this bed I shall do some deed of an almost terrible virtue.” — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“It is vain for Mr. McCabe to say that a ballet is a part of him. He should be part of a… — G.K. Chesterton Ballet Copy Share Image
“Pessimism is not in being tired of evil but in being tired of good. Despair does not lie in being weary of… — G.K. Chesterton Despair Copy Share Image
