The modern world... has no notion except that of simplifying something by destroying nearly everything. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
The modern world is filled with men who hold dogmas so strongly that they do not even know they are dogmas. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Modern toleration is really a tyranny. It is a tyranny because it is a silence. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Science in the modern world has many uses; its chief use, however, is to provide long words to cover the errors of… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Modern man is educated to understand foreign languages and misunderstand foreigners. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Savages and modern artists are alike strangely driven to create something uglier than themselves. but the artists find it harder. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
A great curse has fallen upon modern life with the discovery of the vastness of the word Education. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
If there is one thing worse than the modern weakening of major morals it is the modern strengthening of minor morals. — 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
Compromise used to mean that half a loaf was better than no bread. Among modern statesmen it really seems to mean that… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Modern science is necessarily a double-edged tool, a tool that cuts both ways. ... There is no doubt that a Zeppelin is… — 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
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 great misfortune of the modern English is not at all that they are more boastful than other people (they are not);… — 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
Were Patrick Henry to return to earth and look around on the vast economic order of the day, he might revise his… — 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
The theory of free speech, that truth is so much larger and stranger and more many-sided than we know of, that it… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
The modern world has far too little understanding of the art of keeping young. Its notion of progress has been to pile… — 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
There are two kinds of paradoxes. They are not so much the good and the bad, nor even the true and the… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
What the world wants, what the world is waiting for, is not Modern Poetry or Classical Poetry or Neo-Classical Poetry - but… — 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
I like the Americans for a great many reasons. I like them because even the modern thing called industrialism has not entirely… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
An imbecile habit has arisen in modern controversy of saying that such and such a creed can be held in one age… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
The modern world is not evil; in some ways the modern world is far too good. It is full of wild and… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
I do not know much about Mohammed or Mohammedanism. I do not take the Koran to bed with me every night. But,… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
The great intellectual tradition that comes down to us from the past was never interrupted or lost through such trifles as the… — 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
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
Modern broad-mindedness benefits the rich; and benefits nobody else. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Christianity even when watered down is hot enough to boil all modern society to rags. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
The last few decades have been marked by a special cultivation of the romance of the future. We seem to have made… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
The modern mind will accept nothing on authority, but will accept anything on no authority. Say that the Bible or the Pope… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated… — 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… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Though the academic authorities are actually proud of conducting everything by means of Examinations, they seldom indulge in what religious people used… — 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
Youth is always too serious, and just now it is too serious about frivolity. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share
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
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
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
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
Faith is always at a disadvantage; it is a perpetually defeated thing which survives all conquerors. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share
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
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
Criticism is only words about words, and of what use are words about such words as these? — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share
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
Plato was only a Bernard Shaw who unfortunately made his jokes in Greek. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share
Music with dinner is an insult both to the cook and the violinist. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share
Eugenics asserts that all men must be so stupid that they cannot manage their own affairs; and also so clever that they can manage… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share
![“[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/i/286/gilbert-k-chesterton-223_answers_consider-a-fence-or-gate-erected-across_1311608.jpg)
