The human race is always trying this dodge of making everything entirely easy; but the difficulty which it shifts off one thing… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
The greatest political storm flutters only a fringe of humanity. But an ordinary man and an ordinary woman and their ordinary children… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Mankind is not a tribe of animals to which we owe compassion. Mankind is a club to which we owe our subscription. — 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
It might reasonably be maintained that the true object of all human life is play. Earth is a task garden; heaven is… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
I have investigated the dust-heaps of humanity, and found a treasure in all of them. I have found that humanity is not… — 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
Now it has appeared to me unfair that humanity should be engaged perpetually in calling all those things bad which have been… — 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 are generally honest. Complete solemnity is almost always dishonest. The writer of the snippet merely refers to a frivolous and fugitive fact in a frivolous and fugitive way. The writer of the leading article has to… — 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 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 nail in his boot that prevented him from going on. For the old humility made a man doubtful about his efforts, which made him work harder. But the new humility makes a man doubtful about his… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share
Plato was only a Bernard Shaw who unfortunately made his jokes in Greek. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
