All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Whether a man chooses to tell the truth in long sentences or short jokes is a problem analogous to whether he chooses… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
The most dangerous criminal now is the entirely lawless modern philosopher. Compared to him, burglars and bigamists are essentially moral men. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
There is a case for telling the truth; there is a case for avoiding the scandal; but there is no possible defense… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
The idea of private property universal but private, the idea of families free but still families, of domesticity democratic but still domestic,… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Women have a thirst for order and beauty as for something physical; there is a strange female power of hating ugliness and… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
The sort of man who admires Italian art while despising Italian religion is a tourist and a cad. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
The average man votes below himself; he votes with half a mind or a hundredth part of one. A man ought to… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
All the controversialists who have become conscious of the real issue are already saying of our ideal exactly what used to be… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
The outer ring of Christianity is a rigid guard of ethical abnegations and professional priests; but inside that inhuman guard you will… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
In the modern conflict between the Smile and the Laugh, I am all in favor of laughing. The recent stage of culture… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
It is the root of all religion that a man knows that he is nothing in order to thank God that he… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
For they (capitalists) hold as their chief heresy, in a coarser form, the fundamental falsehood that things are not made to be… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
To say that a man is an idealist is merely to say that he is a man. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
The free man owns himself. He can damage himself with either eating or drinking; he can ruin himself with gambling. If he… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Idolatry is committed, not merely by setting up false gods, but also by setting up false devils; by making men afraid of… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
By experts in poverty I do not mean sociologists, but poor men. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Men can construct a science with very few instruments, or with very plain instruments; but no one on earth could construct a… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
A tragedy means always a mans struggle with that which is stronger than man. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
All men matter. You matter. I matter. It's the hardest thing in theology to believe. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
When a man ceases to believe in god, he does not believe in nothing. He believes in everything. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Men reform a thing by removing the reality from it, and then do not know what to do with the unreality that… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
I say that a man must be certain of his morality for the simple reason that he has to suffer for it. — 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
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
