The old religionist cried out for his god. The new religionist cries out for some god to be his. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Catholicism is not ritualism; it may in the future be fighting some sort of superstitious and idolatrous exaggeration of ritual. Catholicism is… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
The only thing that has kept the race of men from the mad extremes of the convent and the pirate-galley, the night-club… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Mysticism keeps mankind sane. As long as you have mystery you have health; when you destroy mystery you create morbidity. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
In the main, and from the beginning of time, mysticism has kept men sane. The thing that has driven them mad was… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Facts as facts do not always create a spirit of reality, because reality is a spirit. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
The most unfathomable schools and sages have never attained to the gravity which dwells in the eyes of a baby of three… — 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