“Until we realize that things might not be, we cannot realize that things are. Until we see the background of darkness, we… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“The perplexity of life arises from their being too many interesting things in it for us to be interested properly in any… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“So far as he could prevent it, Dickens never permitted a day of his life to be ordinary. There was always some… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“It is a good thing for a man to live in a family for the same reason that it is a good… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“The vision which has been so faintly suggested in these pages has never been confined to monks or even to friars. It… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“We now have a strong desire for living combined with a strange carelessness about dying. We desire life like water and yet… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“A Second Childhood.” When all my days are ending And I have no song to sing, I think that I shall not… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“We say that the most dangerous criminal now is the entirely lawless modern philosopher. Compared to him, burglars and bigamists are essentially… — G.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… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“How much larger your life would be if your self could become smaller in it; if you could really look at other… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“He was one of those who are driven early in life into too conservative an attitude by the bewildering folly of most… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“The most incredible thing about miracles is that they happen. …there is in life an element of elfin coincidence which people on… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“Now, life, ordinary, jolly, heathen, human life, is simply chockful of these dead words and meaningless ceremonies. You will not escape from… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“People wonder why the novel is the most popular form of literature; people wonder why it is read more than books of… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“Can you not see," I said, "that fairy tales in their essence are quite solid and straightforward; but that this everlasting fiction… — 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
“And under all this vast illusion of the cosmopolitan planet, with its empires and its Reuter's agency, the real life of man… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“At any innocent tea-table we may easily hear a man say, "Life is not worth living." We regard it as we regard… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. A soldier surrounded by enemies, if he is to cut his way out, needs to… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“Life was a fly that faded, and death a drone that stung; The world was very old indeed when you and I… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“The last lingering shadow of the Jesuit, gliding behind curtains and concealing himself in cupboards, faded from my young life about the… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“If our life is ever really as beautiful as a fairy tale, we shall have to remember that all the beauty of… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“If Innocent is happy, it is because he is innocent. If he can defy the conventions, it is just because he can… — 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
