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
When once you have got hold of a vulgar joke, you may be certain that you have got hold of a subtle… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
At the back of our brains is a blaze of astonishment at our own existence. The object of the artistic and spiritual… — 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
Idolatry is committed, not merely by setting up false gods, but also by setting up false devils; by making men afraid of… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
All literary style, especially national style, is made up of such coincidences, which are a spiritual sort of puns. That is why… — 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
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 are generally honest. Complete solemnity is almost always dishonest. The writer of the snippet merely refers to a frivolous and fugitive fact in a frivolous and fugitive way. The writer of the leading article has to… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share
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 nail in his boot that prevented him from going on. For the old humility made a man doubtful about his efforts, which made him work harder. But the new humility makes a man doubtful about his… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share
Plato was only a Bernard Shaw who unfortunately made his jokes in Greek. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
