Religion Quotes by G.K. Chesterton

“When duty and religion are really destroyed, it will be by the rich.”

— G.K. Chesterton

“this clumsy collision of two very impatient forms of ignorance was known as the quarrel of Science and Religion.”

— G.K. Chesterton

“The worst moment for an atheist is when he is really thankful and has no one to thank.”

— G.K. Chesterton

“He who weds the spirit of the times quickly becomes a widower.”

— G.K. Chesterton

“The Church always seems to be behind the times, when it is really beyond the times.”

— G.K. Chesterton

“Men are moved most by their religion; especially when it is irreligion.”

— G.K. Chesterton

“Of all horrible religions the most horrible is the worship of hte god within.”

— G.K. Chesterton

“But always, it has been truly said, the savage is talkative about his mythology and taciturn about his religion.”

— G.K. Chesterton

“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

Those might not be the very best judges of the relation of religion to happiness who, by their own account, had neither…

— G.K. Chesterton

“Christianity even when watered down is hot enough to boil all modern society to rags. The mere minimum of the Church would…

— G.K. Chesterton

“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

“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

“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

“This is not a university town full of philosophies; it is a Zion of the hundred sieges raging with religions; not a…

— G.K. Chesterton

“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

“You will not be able rationally to read the Gospel and regard the Crucifixion as an afterthought or an anti-climax or an…

— G.K. Chesterton

“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

“First, it must be realized that liveliness in the preacher does not mean liveliness in the congregation. On the contrary, the extreme…

— G.K. Chesterton

“The materialist philosophy (whether true or not) is certainly much more limiting than any religion. In one sense, of course, all intelligent…

— G.K. Chesterton

“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

“Christianity is the only religion on earth that has felt that omnipotence made God incomplete. Christianity alone has felt that God, to…

— G.K. Chesterton

“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

“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

“The substance of all such paganism may be summarised thus. It is an attempt to reach the divine reality through the imagination…

— G.K. Chesterton

“When Christ at a symbolic moment was establishing His great society, He chose for its cornerstone neither the brilliant Paul nor the…

— G.K. Chesterton

“Briefly, then, we dismiss the two opposite dangers of bigotry and fanaticism, bigotry which is a too great vagueness and fanaticism which…

— G.K. Chesterton

“Now the best relation to our spiritual home is to be near enough to love it. But the next best is to…

— G.K. Chesterton

“People are very curious nowadays in their way of talking about "the spirit" of a thing. There is, for example, a particular…

— G.K. Chesterton

“Much of our modern difficulty, in religion and other things, arises merely from this: that we confuse the word "indefinable" with the…

— G.K. Chesterton

“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

“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

“The truth is, I think, that they are caught in a sort of argument in a circle. Their vague philosophy says to…

— G.K. Chesterton

“Then may I ask you to swear by whatever gods or saints your religion involves that you will not reveal what I…

— G.K. Chesterton

“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

“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

“Suppose that a great commotion arises in the street about something, let us say a lamp-post, which many influential persons desire to…

— G.K. Chesterton

“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

“The one created thing which we cannot look at is the one thing in the light of which we look at everything.…

— G.K. Chesterton

“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