“Morality did not begin by one man saying to another, "I will not hit you if you do not hit me"; there… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“In most cases the name is unpoetical, although the fact is poetical. In the case of Smith, the name is so poetical… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“For our Titanic purposes of faith and revolution, what we need is not the cold acceptance of the world as a compromise,… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“The modern mind is merely a blank about the philosophy of toleration; and the average agnostic of recent times has really had… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“This man's spiritual power has been precisely this, that he has distinguished between custom and creed. He has broken the conventions, but… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“it will be generally found that the popular joke is not true to the letter, but is true to the spirit. The… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“Mysticism keeps men sane. As long as you have mystery you have health; when you destroy mystery you create morbidity. The ordinary… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“this clumsy collision of two very impatient forms of ignorance was known as the quarrel of Science and Religion.” — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“I do not say that there are no stronger men than these; but will any one say that there are any men… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“In the same way, we read a great deal about the Spirit of Christmas in modern journalism or commercialism; but it is… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“Charity means pardoning what is unpardonable, or it is no virtue at all. Hope means hoping when things are hopeless, or it… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“A religion is not the church a man goes to but the cosmos he lives in; and if any sceptic forgets it,… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“I'm afraid I'm a practical man,' said the doctor with gruff humour, 'and I don't bother much about religion and philosophy.' 'You'll… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“I should say that there ought to be no war except religious war. If war is irreligious, it is immoral. No man… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“If a school of critics were found prepared to pay divine honours to a certain person while doubting whether he was divine,… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“Truths turn into dogmas the instant that they are disputed. Thus every man who utters a doubt defines a religion. And the… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“Many great religions, Pagan and Christian, have insisted on wine. Only one, I think, has insisted on Soap. You will find it… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“Mysticism conceives something transcending experience; religion seeks glimpses of a better good or a worse evil than experience can give. Reincarnation need… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“In so far as religion is gone, reason is going. For they are both of the same primary and authoritative kind. They… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“The vulgar modern argument used against religion, and lately against common decency, would be absolutely fatal to any idea of liberty. It… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“Saint-worship is not the same as hero-worship; it is a much less dangerous thing than hero-worship. For hero-worship generally means the absorption… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“The present importance of the Book of Job cannot be expressed adequately even by saying that it is the most interesting of… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“But always, it has been truly said, the savage is talkative about his mythology and taciturn about his religion.” — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“I never use paradox. The statements I make are wearisome and obvious common sense. I have even been driven to the tedium of reading… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“Nothing, again, could be more prosaic and impenetrable than the domestic energies of Miss Diana Duke. But Innocent had somehow blundered on the discovery… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“The mass of men have been forced to be gay about the little things, but sad about the big ones. Nevertheless (I offer my… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“ask yourself how many people you have met who grumbled at a thing as incurable, and how many who attacked it as curable? How… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children's games from the beginning, and will probably do… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“Internationalism is in any case hostile to democracy….The only purely popular government is local, and founded on local knowledge. The citizens can rule the… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“There was a short railway official travelling up to the terminus, three fairly short market-gardeners picked up two stations afterwards, one very short widow… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“Humility is the mother of giants. One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak.” — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“Man, by a blind instinct, knew that if once things were wildly questioned, reason could be questioned first. The authority of priests to absolve,… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“It is idle to talk always of the alternative of reason and faith. Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
