Gilbert K. Chesterton

Against a dark sky, all flowers look like fireworks.

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

If a man does not talk to himself, it is because he is not worth talking to.

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

There are no new ideas about female education.

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

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

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

The simplification of anything is always sensational.

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

Freethinkers are occasionally thoughtful, though never free.

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

You can't have the family farm without the family.

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

The traveler sees what he sees, the tourist sees what he has come to see.

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

The man who says, 'my country right or wrong' is like the man who says, 'my mother drunk or sober'

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

If I can put one touch of rosy sunset into the life of any man or woman, I shall feel that I…

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

Do not free a camel of the burden of his hump; you may be freeing him from being a camel.

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

A Catholic is a person who has plucked up courage to face the incredible and inconceivable idea that something else may be…

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

The primary paradox of Christianity is that the ordinary condition of man is not his sane or sensible condition; that the normal…

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

All architecture is great architecture after sunset; perhaps architecture is really a nocturnal art, like the art of fireworks.

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

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

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

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

Without authority there is no liberty. Freedom is doomed to destruction at every turn, unless there is a recognized right to freedom.…

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

We cannot fling ourselves into the blank future; we can only call up images from the past. This being so, the important…

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

It is the decisive people who have become civilised; it is the indecisive, otherwise called the higher sceptics, or the idealistic doubters,…

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

Though the academic authorities are actually proud of conducting everything by means of Examinations, they seldom indulge in what religious people used…

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

Exactly what the fairy tale does is this: it accustoms him for a series of clear pictures to the idea that these…

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

When fishes flew and forests walked And figs grew upon thorn, Some moment when the moon was blood Then surely I was…

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

The man of the true religious tradition understands two things: liberty and obedience. The first means knowing what you really want. The…

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

The past is democratic, because it is a people. The future is despotic, because it is a caprice. Every man is alone…

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

The truth is that it is our attitude towards children that is right, and our attitude towards grown-up people that is wrong.…

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

There is always in the healthy mind an obscure prompting that religion teaches us rather to dig than to climb; that if…

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

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

The humorous look of children is perhaps the most endearing of all the bonds that hold the Cosmos together. Their top-heavy dignity…

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

Every true artist does feel, consciously or unconsciously, that he is touching transcendental truths; that his images are shadows of things seen…

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

"The Universe repeats itself, with the possible exception of history." Of all earthly studies history is the only one that does not…

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

The great intellectual tradition that comes down to us from the past was never interrupted or lost through such trifles as the…

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

The mind moves by instincts, associations and premonitions and not by fixed dates or completed processes. Action and reaction will occur simultaneously:…

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

Progress is a comparative of which we have not settled the superlative.

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

You cannot love a thing without wanting to fight for it.

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

Research is the search of people who don't know what they want.

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity.

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

The only way to be sure of catching a train is to miss the one before it.

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

The highest and noblest thing that history can be is a good story.

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

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

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

We do not need a censorship of the press. We have a censorship by the press... It is not we who silence…

— Gilbert K. Chesterton