It's not that we don't have enough scoundrels to curse; it's that we don't have enough good men to curse them. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Every sane man recognises that unlimited liberty is anarchy, or rather is nonentity. The civic idea of liberty is to give the… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
The doctrine of human equality reposes on this: that there is no man really clever who has not found that he is… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
There must be some good in the life of battle, for so many good men have enjoyed being soldiers. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Modern masters of science are much impressed with the need of beginning all inquiry with a fact. The ancient masters of religion… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
There are no new lies, no new heresies. Man is simply not that creative. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Modern nature-worship is all upside down. Trees and fields ought to be the ordinary things; terraces and temples ought to be extraordinary.… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
The whole curse of the last century has been what is called the Swing of the Pendulum; that is, the idea that… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Man is more himself, man is more manlike, when Joy is the fundamental thing in him, and Grief the superficial. Melancholy should… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Man knows that there are in the soul tints more bewildering, more numberless, and more nameless that the colors of an autumn… — 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
Journalism only tells us what men are doing; it is fiction that tells us what they are thinking, and still more what… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
The Mass is not only about God becoming man, it is about Man becoming more himself. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
I never said a word against eminent men of science. What I complain of is a vague popular philosophy which supposes itself… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
A cosmic philosophy is not constructed to fit a man; a cosmic philosophy is constructed to fit a cosmos. A man can… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Aristocracy is an atmosphere; it is sometimes a healthy atmosphere; but it is very hard to say when it becomes an unhealthy… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Very few people in the world would care to listen to the real defense of their own characters. The real defense, the… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
We have passed the age of the demagogue, the man who has little to say and says it loud. We have come… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
A good man's work is effected by doing what he does, a woman's by being what she is. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
The Byzantines hammered away at their hard and orthodox symbols, because they could not be in a mood to believe that men… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Obviously if any actions, even a lunatic's, can be causeless, determinism is done for. If the chain of causation can be broken… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Men rush towards complexity, but they yearn towards simplicity. They try to be kings; but they dream of being shepherds. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
A man running after a hat is not half so ridiculous as a man running after a woman. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
A great deal of contemporary criticism reads to me like a man saying, 'Of course I do not like green cheese. I… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
The man of the true religious tradition understands two things: liberty and obedience. The first means knowing what you really want. The… — 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
