Free verse'? You may as well call sleeping in a ditch 'free architecture'. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
You may think a crime horrible because you could never commit it. I think it is horrible because I could commit it. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
What life and death may be to a turkey is not my business; but the soul of Scrooge and the body of… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Ivory may not be so white as snow, but the whole Arctic continent does not make ivory black. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Democracy is like blowing your nose. You may not do it well, but it's something you ought to do yourself. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
What people call impartiality may simply mean indifference, and what people call partiality may simply mean mental activity. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
I may not practice what I preach but God forbid I should preach what I practice — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
The great saint may be said to mix all his thoughts with thanks. All goods look better when they look like gifts. — 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
It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
A man looking at a hippopotamus may sometimes be tempted to regard a hippopotamus as an enormous mistake; but he is also… — 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
Life is serious all the time, but living cannot be. You may have all the solemnity you wish in your neckties, but… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
If I think the universe is triangular, and you think it is square, there cannot be room for two universes. We may… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
We all know that the 'divine glory of the ego' is socially a great nuisance; we all do actually value our friends… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
The true savage is a slave, and is always talking about what he must do; the true civilised man is a free… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
So far as a man may be proud of a religion rooted in humility, I am very proud of my religion; I… — Gilbert 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… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
[Consider] a fence or gate erected across a road] The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says,… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Science only means knowledge; and for [Greek] ancients it did only mean knowledge. Thus the favorite science of the Greeks was Astronomy,… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
No one can understand Paris and its history who does not understand that its fierceness is the balance and justification of its… — 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
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
To desire money is much nobler than to desire success. Desiring money may mean desiring to return to your country, or marry… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
One may understand the cosmos, but never the ego; the self is more distant than any star. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Catholic doctrine and discipline may be walls; but they are the walls of a playground. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
A sober man may become a drunkard through being a coward. A brave man may become a coward through being a drunkard. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Whatever else we may say of our own age, for good or evil, nobody is likely to call it an Age of… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
When once you have got hold of a vulgar joke, you may be certain that you have got hold of a subtle… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
A Catholic is a person who has plucked up courage to face the incredible and inconceivable idea that something else may be… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Do not free a camel of the burden of his hump; you may be freeing him from being a camel. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Whatever else may be said of man, this one thing is clear: He is not what he is capable of being. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Bigotry may be roughly defined as the anger of men who have no opinions. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Every work of art has one indispensable mark ... the center of it is simple, however much the fulfillment may be complicated. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
The philosophy of this world may be founded on facts, but its business is run on spiritual impressions and atmospheres. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
If the common man in the past had a grave respect for property, it may conceivably have been because he sometimes had… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical encore. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
A modern man may disapprove of some of his sweeping reforms, and approve others; but finds it difficult not to admire even… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Now there is any amount of this nonsense cropping up among American cranks. Anybody may propose to establish coercive Eugenics; or enforce… — 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
![“[Consider] a fence or gate erected across a road] The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, "I don't see the use of this; let us clear it away." To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: "If you don't see the use of it, I certainly won't let you…” quote by Gilbert K. Chesterton](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/286/gilbert-k-chesterton-223_answers_consider-a-fence-or-gate-erected-across_1311608.jpg)
![“Science only means knowledge; and for [Greek] ancients it did only mean knowledge. Thus the favorite science of the Greeks was Astronomy, because it was as abstract as Algebra. ... We may say that the great Greek ideal was to have no use for useful things. The Slave was he who learned useful…” quote by Gilbert K. Chesterton](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/afb/gilbert-k-chesterton-223_abstract_science-only-means-knowledge-and-for-gre_734948.jpg)
