Catholicism is not ritualism; it may in the future be fighting some sort of superstitious and idolatrous exaggeration of ritual. Catholicism is… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Gratitude, being nearly the greatest of human duties, is also nearly the most difficult. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
There is no great harm in the theorist who makes up a new theory to fit a new event. But the theorist… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
I like the Americans for a great many reasons. I like them because even the modern thing called industrialism has not entirely… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
When we look upon lives so human and yet so small, we feel as if we ourselves were enlarged to an embarrassing… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Original sin is the only doctrine that's been empirically validated by 2,000 years of human history. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Destiny is but a phrase of the weak human heart - the dark apology for every error. The strong and virtuous admit… — 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
I do not believe that any human being is fundamentally happier for being finally lost in a crowd, even if it is… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
children are simply human beings who are allowed to do what everyone else really desires to do, as for instance, to fly… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
The full potentialities of human fury cannot be reached until a friend of both parties tactfully intervenes. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
It is human to err; and the only final and deadly error, among all our errors, is denying that we have ever… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
It was the mystical dogma of Bentham and Adam Smith and the rest, that some of the worst of human passions would… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
It is not only possible to say a great deal in praise of play; it is really possible to say the highest… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Liberty is the very last idea that seems to occur to anybody, in considering any political or social proposal. It is only… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
I doubt if anyone of any tenderness or imagination can see the hand of a child and not be a little frightened… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
The sceptic ultimately undermines democracy (1) because he can see no significance in death and such things of a literal equality; (2)… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
There is nothing harder to learn than painting and nothing which most people take less trouble about learning. An art school is… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
The doctrine of human equality reposes on this: that there is no man really clever who has not found that he is… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Hell is God's great compliment to the reality of human freedom and the dignity of human choice. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
It might reasonably be maintained that the true object of all human life is play. Earth is a task garden; heaven is… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Human anger is a higher thing than what is called divine discontent. For you must be angry with something; but you can… — 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
