“it will be generally found that the popular joke is not true to the letter, but is true to the spirit. The… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“he sometimes felt himself to be a painfully prosaic person, but by the same token he knew he was incurably sane.” — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“The materialist thinks me a slave because I am not allowed to believe in determinism. I think [the materialist] a slave because… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“We are perhaps permitted tragedy as a sort of merciful comedy: because the frantic energy of divine things would knock us down… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“I'm afraid I'm a practical man,' said the doctor with gruff humour, 'and I don't bother much about religion and philosophy.' 'You'll… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“There is something sinister about putting a leprechaun in a workhouse. The only solid comfort is that he certainly will not work.” — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“Roughly speaking, there are three kinds of people in the world…the division follows lines of real psychological cleavage. I do not offer… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“Of a sane man there is only one safe definition. He is the man who can have tragedy in his heart and… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“He is a man, I think," he said, "who cares for nothing but a joke. He is a dangerous man." Lambert laughed… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“The men who made the joke saw something deep which they could not express except by something silly and emphatic.” — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“The silly sentimentalists of the French Revolution talked of the Rights of Man! We hate Rights as we hate Wrongs. We have… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“Christianity and Buddhism are very much alike, especially Buddhism.” — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“I have been asked to explain what I meant by saying that "Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity." I have… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“All men are tragic...All men are comic...Every man is important if he loses his life; and every man is funny if he… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“It is quite futile to argue that man is small compared to the cosmos; for man was always small compared to the… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“Then the small man suddenly ran after them and said: "I want to get my haircut. I say, do you know a… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“The joke is generally in the oddest way the truth and yet not the fact.” — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
“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 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
“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 Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
