One can hardly think too little of one's self. One can hardly think too much of one's soul. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
the object of a new year is not that we should have a new year, but rather that we should have a… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
What life and death may be to a turkey is not my business; but the soul of Scrooge and the body of… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Only friendliness produces friendship. And we must look far deeper into the soul of man for the thing that produces friendliness. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
What we call emancipation is always and of necessity simply the free choice of the soul between one set of limitations and… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
The men of the clique live together because they have the same kind of soul, and their narrowness is a narrowness of… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Islam was something like a Christian heresy. The early heresies had been full of mad reversals and evasions of the Incarnation, rescuing… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Man is more himself, man is more manlike, when joy is the fundamental thing in him, and grief the superficial. Melancholy should… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Youth is the period in which a man can be hopeless. The end of every episode is the end of the world.… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
The free man owns himself. He can damage himself with either eating or drinking; he can ruin himself with gambling. If he… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
It is unpardonable conceit not to laugh at your own jokes. Joking is undignified; that is why it is so good for… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
We are talking about an artist; and for the enjoyment of the artist the mask must be to some extent moulded on… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
The modern world has far too little understanding of the art of keeping young. Its notion of progress has been to pile… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Journalism only tells us what men are doing; it is fiction that tells us what they are thinking, and still more what… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Man knows that there are in the soul tints more bewildering, more numberless, and more nameless that the colors of an autumn… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
What is education? Properly speaking, there is no such thing as education. Education is simply the soul of a society as it… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Folk-lore means that the soul is sane, but that the universe is wild and full of marvels. Realism means that the world… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
The average man votes below himself; he votes with half a mind or a hundredth part of one. A man ought to… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Man is more himself, man is more manlike, when Joy is the fundamental thing in him, and Grief the superficial. Melancholy should… — 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
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
