“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
“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
“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
“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
“There are two ways of renouncing the devil,” he said; “and the difference is perhaps the deepest chasm in modern religion. One… — 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
“The moment men begin to care more for education than for religion they begin to care more for ambition than for education.… — 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
“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
“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
“When the old Liberals removed the gags from all the heresies, their idea was that religious and philosophical discoveries might thus be… — 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
“In short, the democratic faith is this: that the most terribly important things must be left to ordinary men themselves—the mating of… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“If the moderns really want a simple religion of love, they must look for it in the Athanasian Creed. The truth is… — G.K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
“The devil can quote Scripture for his purpose; and the text of Scripture which he now most commonly quotes is, “The Kingdom… — 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
