It is shorter to state the things forbidden than the things permitted; precisely because most things are permitted and only a few… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
If we want to give poor people soap we must set out deliberately to give them luxuries. If we will not make… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
What we call emancipation is always and of necessity simply the free choice of the soul between one set of limitations and… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
The voice of the special rebels and prophets, recommending discontent, should, as I have said, sound now and then suddenly, like a… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
All men thirst to confess their crimes more than tired beasts thirst for water; but they naturally object to confessing them while… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Modern broad-mindedness benefits the rich; and benefits nobody else. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
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
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
The world will very soon be divided, unless I am mistaken, into those who still go on explaining our success, and those… — 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
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
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
