If a man only likes victory he must always come late for the battle. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Earth will grow worse till men redeem it, And wars more evil, ere all wars cease. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
There must be some good in the life of battle, for so many good men have enjoyed being soldiers. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
War is not the best way of settling differences; it is the only way of preventing their being settled for you. — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
[Marxism will] in a generation or so [go] into the limbo of most heresies, but meanwhile it will have poisoned the Russian… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
A man who says that no patriot should attack the war until it is over... is saying no good son should warn… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
The old assumption of the approximate impossibility of war really rested on a similar assumption about the impossibility of evil-and especially of… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
A man who says that no patriot should attack the Boer War until it is over is not worth answering intelligently; he… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
In the modern conflict between the Smile and the Laugh, I am all in favor of laughing. The recent stage of culture… — 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
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 full value of this life can only be got by fighting; the violent take it by storm. And if we have… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
Such professions as the soldier and the lawyer ... give ample opportunity for crimes but not much for mere illusions. ... If… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
That all war is physically frightful is obvious; but if that were a moral verdict, there would be no difference between a… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
You've got that eternal idiotic idea that if anarchy came it would come from the poor. Why should it? The poor have… — 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