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
It is very good for a man to talk about what he does not understand; as long as he understands that he… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
The only thing that has kept the race of men from the mad extremes of the convent and the pirate-galley, the night-club… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
A change of opinions is almost unknown in an elderly military man. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Any man who preaches real love is bound to beget hate. It is as true of democratic fraternity as a divine love;… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
I am myself so exceedingly Nordic, as far as physical constitution is concerned, that I can enjoy almost any weather except what… — 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
But pure wit is akin to Puritanism; to the perfect and painful consciousness of the final fact in the universe. Very briefly,… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
The miser is the man who starves himself and everybody else, in order to worship wealth in its dead form, as distinct… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Unless a man starts afresh about things, he will certainly do nothing effective. Unless a man starts on the strange assumption that… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
For us who live in cities Nature is not natural. Nature is supernatural. Just as monks watched and strove to get a… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
The truth is that there are no things for which men will make such herculean efforts as the things of which they… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Folk-lore means that the soul is sane, but that the universe is wild and full of marvels. Realism means that the world… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
The greatest political storm flutters only a fringe of humanity. But an ordinary man and an ordinary woman and their ordinary children… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
For the mass of men the idea of artistic creation can only be expressed by an idea unpopular in present discussions -… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
The man who lives in a small community lives in a much larger world... The reason is obvious. In a large community… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
In the main, and from the beginning of time, mysticism has kept men sane. The thing that has driven them mad was… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Brave men are all vertebrates; they have their softness on the surface and their toughness in the middle. — 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
A man making the confession of any creed worth ten minutes' intelligent talk, is always a man who gains something and gives… — 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
Let a man walk ten miles steadily on a hot summer's day along a dusty English road, and he will soon discover… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
There is no better test of a man's ultimate chivalry and integrity than how he behaves when he is wrong... A stiff… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
The Sentimentalist, roughly speaking, is the man who wants to eat his cake and have it. He has no sense of honor… — 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