If it's worth doing, it's worth doing badly. (on not perfectionism to put things off) . — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Being a success at work is not worth it if it means being a failure at home. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
If a man does not talk to himself, it is because he is not worth talking to. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
If we could destroy custom at a blow and see the stars as a child sees them, we should need no other… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
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
If a man only likes victory he must always come late for the battle. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
We can be almost certain of being wrong about the future, if we are wrong about the past. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
If the apple hit Newton’s nose, Newton’s nose hit the apple. — 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 feel the whiteness of the lily with a graphic and passionate clearness which we cannot give them at all. The only… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
If the world grows to worldly, it can be rebuked by the Church; but if the Church grows to worldly, it cannot… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
'As you have made your bed, so you must lie on it'; which again is simply a lie. If I have made… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
A man imagines a happy marriage as a marriage of love; even if he makes fun of marriages that are without love,… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
The aesthete aims at harmony rather than beauty. If his hair does not match the mauve sunset against which he is standing,… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
You can free things from alien or accidental laws, but not from the laws of their own nature. You may, if you… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
If Christianity should happen to be true - that is to say, if its God is the real God of the universe… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
But a somewhat more liberal and sympathetic examination of mankind will convince us that the cross is even older than the gibbet,… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
That all war is physically frightful is obvious; but if that were a moral verdict, there would be no difference between a… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
We are always giving foreign names to very native things. If there is a thing that reeks of the glorious tradition of… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
No sane person, I hope, would accuse me of saying that every Distributist must drink beer; especially if he could brew his… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
Blasphemy is an artistic effect, because blasphemy depends upon a philosophical conviction. Blasphemy depends upon belief and is fading with it. If… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
A fairly clear line separated advertisement from art. ... The first effect of the triumph of the capitalist (if we allow him… — 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
I do not know much about Mohammed or Mohammedanism. I do not take the Koran to bed with me every night. But,… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
You've got that eternal idiotic idea that if anarchy came it would come from the poor. Why should it? The poor have… — 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 Universe repeats itself, with the possible exception of history." Of all earthly studies history is the only one that does not… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
...I will praise the English climate till I die—even if I die of the English climate. There is no weather so good… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Now, among the heresies that are spoken in this matter is the habit of calling a grey day a "colourless" day. Grey… — 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
The average man votes below himself; he votes with half a mind or a hundredth part of one. A man ought to… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
How much larger your life would be if you were smaller in it... — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
If man is not the image of God, then he is a disease of the dust. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
If I did not believe in God, I should still want my doctor, my lawyer and my banker to do so. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Thinking means connecting things, and stops if they cannot be connected. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
You'll never find the solution if you don't see the problem. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
If there is one thing worse than the modern weakening of major morals it is the modern strengthening of minor morals. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
If prosperity is regarded as the reward of virtue it will be regarded as the symptom of virtue. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
If you spell a word wrong you have some temptation to think it wrong. — 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
Youth is always too serious, and just now it is too serious about frivolity. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share
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
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
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
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
Faith is always at a disadvantage; it is a perpetually defeated thing which survives all conquerors. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share
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
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
Criticism is only words about words, and of what use are words about such words as these? — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share
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
Plato was only a Bernard Shaw who unfortunately made his jokes in Greek. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share
Music with dinner is an insult both to the cook and the violinist. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share
Eugenics asserts that all men must be so stupid that they cannot manage their own affairs; and also so clever that they can manage… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share
