It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it. — Gilbert 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. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
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
I may not practice what I preach but God forbid I should preach what I practice — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
When people talk as if the Crusades were nothing more than an aggressive raid against Islam, they seem to forget in the… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
So far as a man may be proud of a religion rooted in humility, I am very proud of my religion; I… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
The philosophy of this world may be founded on facts, but its business is run on spiritual impressions and atmospheres. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Life is serious all the time, but living cannot be. You may have all the solemnity you wish in your neckties, but… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Theology is simply that part of religion that requires brains. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
It is because artists do not practise, patrons do not patronize, crowds do not assemble to reverently worship the great work of… — 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 Christian is quite free to believe that there is a considerable amount of settled order and inevitable development in the universe.… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
It is a strange thing that many truly spiritual men, such as General Gordon, have actually spent some hours in speculating upon… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
I still hold. . .that the suburbs ought to be either glorified by romance and religion or else destroyed by fire from… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
One of the chief uses of religion is that it makes us remember our coming from darkness, the simple fact that we… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
A good Moslem king was one who was strict in religion, valiant in battle, just in giving judgment among his people, but… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
The simple sense of wonder at the shapes of things, and at their exuberant independence of our intellectual standards and our trivial… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Science boasts of the distance of its stars; of the terrific remoteness of the things of which it has to speak. But… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Happiness is a mystery, like religion, and should never be rationalised. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
And it did for one wild moment cross my mind that, perhaps, those might not be the very best judges of the… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Modern masters of science are much impressed with the need of beginning all inquiry with a fact. The ancient masters of religion… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
There is always in the healthy mind an obscure prompting that religion teaches us rather to dig than to climb; that if… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
A cosmic philosophy is not constructed to fit a man; a cosmic philosophy is constructed to fit a cosmos. A man can… — 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
