Happiness Quotes by G.K. Chesterton

14 Happiness quotes by G.K. Chesterton

All Happiness quotes G.K. Chesterton’s page

These 14 snippets capture Chesterton’s love of paradox and his knack for turning everyday moments into reflections on joy.

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“Unhappy! of course you'll be unhappy. Who the devil are you that you shouldn't be unhappy, like the mother that bore you?”

G.K. Chesterton

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“I know he is really happy, and yet I can never catch him at it.”

G.K. Chesterton

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“No,' said Gould, with an unusual and convincing gravity; 'I do not believe that being perfectly good in all respects would make…

G.K. Chesterton

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Those might not be the very best judges of the relation of religion to happiness who, by their own account, had neither…

G.K. Chesterton

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“Happiness is a state of the soul; a state in which our natures are full of the wine of an ancient youth,…

G.K. Chesterton

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“The man who cannot believe his senses, and the man who cannot believe anything else, are both insane, but their insanity is…

G.K. Chesterton

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“It is not true that we have never been broken. We have been broken upon the wheel. It is not true that…

G.K. Chesterton

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“What we need is not the cold acceptance of the world as a compromise, but some way in which we can heartily…

G.K. Chesterton

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“The perfect happiness of men on the earth (if it ever comes) will not be a flat and solid thing, like the…

G.K. Chesterton

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“The test of all happiness is gratitude; and I felt grateful, though I hardly knew to whom. Children are grateful when Santa…

G.K. Chesterton

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“If it be true (as it certainly is) that a man can feel exquisite happiness in skinning a cat, then the religious…

G.K. Chesterton

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“I had tried to be happy by telling myself that man is an animal, like any other which sought its meat from…

G.K. Chesterton

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“Naturally, therefore, these people talk about 'a happy time coming'; 'the paradise of the future'; 'mankind freed from the bondage of vice…

G.K. Chesterton

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“But there is a way of despising the dandelion which is not that of the dreary pessimist, but of the more offensive…

G.K. Chesterton

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“I never use paradox. The statements I make are wearisome and obvious common sense. I have even been driven to the tedium of reading…

G.K. Chesterton

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“Nothing, again, could be more prosaic and impenetrable than the domestic energies of Miss Diana Duke. But Innocent had somehow blundered on the discovery…

G.K. Chesterton

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“The mass of men have been forced to be gay about the little things, but sad about the big ones. Nevertheless (I offer my…

G.K. Chesterton

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“ask yourself how many people you have met who grumbled at a thing as incurable, and how many who attacked it as curable? How…

G.K. Chesterton

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“The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children's games from the beginning, and will probably do…

G.K. Chesterton

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“Internationalism is in any case hostile to democracy….The only purely popular government is local, and founded on local knowledge. The citizens can rule the…

G.K. Chesterton

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“There was a short railway official travelling up to the terminus, three fairly short market-gardeners picked up two stations afterwards, one very short widow…

G.K. Chesterton

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“Humility is the mother of giants. One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak.”

G.K. Chesterton

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“Anything worth doing is worth doing badly.”

G.K. Chesterton

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“There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected…

G.K. Chesterton

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“Man, by a blind instinct, knew that if once things were wildly questioned, reason could be questioned first. The authority of priests to absolve,…

G.K. Chesterton

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“It is idle to talk always of the alternative of reason and faith. Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act…

G.K. Chesterton

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“But in order that life should be a story or romance to us, it is necessary that a great part of it, at any…

G.K. Chesterton

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“Buddhism seeks after God with the largest conception it can find, the all-producing and all-absorbing One; Christianity seeks after God with the most elementary…

G.K. Chesterton

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“Man is more himself, more manlike, when joy is the fundamental thing and grief superficial.”

G.K. Chesterton

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