Over-civilization and barbarism are within an inch of each other. And a mark of both is the power of medicine-men. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Instead of the machine being a giant to which the man is the pygmy, we must at last reverse the proportions until… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Our society is so abnormal that the normal man never dreams of having the normal occupation of looking after his own property.… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Earth will grow worse till men redeem it, And wars more evil, ere all wars cease. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
A man can never quite understand a boy, even when he has been a boy. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
The Christian pities men because they are dying, and the Buddhist pities them because they are living. The Christian is sorry for… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
All men are ordinary men; the extraordinary men are those who know it. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Men always talk about the most important things to perfect strangers. In the perfect stranger we perceive man himself; the image of… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
The lunatic is the man who lives in a small world but thinks it is a large one; he is the man… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
In every serious doctrine of the destiny of men, there is some trace of the doctrine of the equality of men. But… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Where does a wise man kick a pebble? On the beach. Where does a wise man hide a leaf? In the forest. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Sir Hiram Maxim is a genuine and typical example of the man of science, romantic, excitable, full of real but somewhat obvious… — 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
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
Some men never feel small, but these are the few men who are. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
The life of a thinking man will probably be divided into two parts -- the first in which he desires to exterminate… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Thrift is the really romantic thing; economy is more romantic than extravagance... thrift is poetic because it is creative; waste is unpoetic… — 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
Women prefer to talk in twos, while men prefer to talk in threes. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
You never know the best about men until you know the worst about them. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
I should favour anything that would increase the present enormous authority of women and their creative action in their own homes. The… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
...it is not necessary to the child to awaken to the sense of the strange and humorous by giving a man a… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Soldiers have many faults, but they have one redeeming merit; they are never worshippers of force. Soldiers more than any other men… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Gratitude produced the most purely joyful moments that have been known to man. — 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
