And all over the world, the old literature, the popular literature, is the same. It consists of very dignified sorrow and very… — 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
Boys like romantic tales; but babies like realistic tales-because they find them romantic. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
The lunatic is the man who lives in a small world but thinks it is a large one; he is the man… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Exactly what the fairy tale does is this: it accustoms [the child] to the idea that these limitless terrors had a limit,… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Boys like romantic [fairy] tales; but babies like realistic tales - because they find them romantic...This proves that even nursery tales only… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Exactly what the fairy tale does is this: it accustoms him for a series of clear pictures to the idea that these… — 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