All good men are international. Nearly all bad men are cosmopolitan. If we are to be international we must be national. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
The word 'good' has many meanings. For example, if a man were to shoot his grandmother at a range of five hundred… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Tradition is only democracy extended through time; it may be defined as an extension of the franchise. Tradition means giving votes to… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
It's not that we don't have enough scoundrels to curse; it's that we don't have enough good men to curse them. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
There must be some good in the life of battle, for so many good men have enjoyed being soldiers. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
A good man's work is effected by doing what he does, a woman's by being what she is. — 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
We are justified in enforcing good morals, for they belong to all mankind; but we are not justified in enforcing good manners,… — 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 Image
Youth is always too serious, and just now it is too serious about frivolity. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
Faith is always at a disadvantage; it is a perpetually defeated thing which survives all conquerors. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
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 Image
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 Image
Criticism is only words about words, and of what use are words about such words as these? — 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; not a… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Plato was only a Bernard Shaw who unfortunately made his jokes in Greek. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image