Wisdom Quotes by G.K. Chesterton

12 Wisdom quotes by G.K. Chesterton

All Wisdom quotes G.K. Chesterton’s page

Chesterton’s knack for turning a phrase turns wisdom into a playful puzzle. In twelve succinct quotes, his humor and paradox invite you to see familiar truths from a fresh angle.

Rate this collection: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ No ratings yet

“Whenever he gives advice it is always something as startling as an epigram, and yet as practical as the Bank of England.”

G.K. Chesterton

Image

“There is only one thing which is generally safe from plagiarism -- self-denial.”

G.K. Chesterton

Image

“As it has been well expressed in the paradox of Poe, wisdom should reckon on the unforeseen.”

G.K. Chesterton

Image

“Our age is obviously the Nonsense Age; the wiser sort of nonsense being provided for the children and the sillier sort of…

G.K. Chesterton

Image

“The most incredible thing about miracles is that they happen. …there is in life an element of elfin coincidence which people on…

G.K. Chesterton

Image

“The wise man will follow a star, low and large and fierce in the heavens, but the nearer he comes to it…

G.K. Chesterton

Image

“The wise men know what wicked things are written on the sky; They trim sad lamps, they touch sad strings, hearing the…

G.K. Chesterton

Image

“Every man, however wise, who begins by worshipping success, must end in mere mediocrity. This strange and paradoxical fate is involved, not…

G.K. Chesterton

Image

“Where does a wise man hide a pebble?" And the tall man answered in a low voice: "On the beach." The small…

G.K. Chesterton

Image

“Job is an optimist. He shakes the pillars of the world and strikes insanely at the heavens; he lashes the stars, but…

G.K. Chesterton

Image

“The pessimists believe that the cosmos is a clock that is running down; the progressives believe it is a clock that they…

G.K. Chesterton

Image

“The Fear of the Lord, that is the beginning of wisdom, and therefore belongs to the beginnings, and is felt in the…

G.K. Chesterton

Image

Other authors on Wisdom

More by G.K. Chesterton

“I never use paradox. The statements I make are wearisome and obvious common sense. I have even been driven to the tedium of reading…

G.K. Chesterton

Image

“Nothing, again, could be more prosaic and impenetrable than the domestic energies of Miss Diana Duke. But Innocent had somehow blundered on the discovery…

G.K. Chesterton

Image

“The mass of men have been forced to be gay about the little things, but sad about the big ones. Nevertheless (I offer my…

G.K. Chesterton

Image

“ask yourself how many people you have met who grumbled at a thing as incurable, and how many who attacked it as curable? How…

G.K. Chesterton

Image

“The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children's games from the beginning, and will probably do…

G.K. Chesterton

Image

“Internationalism is in any case hostile to democracy….The only purely popular government is local, and founded on local knowledge. The citizens can rule the…

G.K. Chesterton

Image

“There was a short railway official travelling up to the terminus, three fairly short market-gardeners picked up two stations afterwards, one very short widow…

G.K. Chesterton

Image

“Humility is the mother of giants. One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak.”

G.K. Chesterton

Image

“Anything worth doing is worth doing badly.”

G.K. Chesterton

Image

“There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected…

G.K. Chesterton

Image

“Man, by a blind instinct, knew that if once things were wildly questioned, reason could be questioned first. The authority of priests to absolve,…

G.K. Chesterton

Image

“It is idle to talk always of the alternative of reason and faith. Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act…

G.K. Chesterton

Image

“But in order that life should be a story or romance to us, it is necessary that a great part of it, at any…

G.K. Chesterton

Image

“Buddhism seeks after God with the largest conception it can find, the all-producing and all-absorbing One; Christianity seeks after God with the most elementary…

G.K. Chesterton

Image

“Man is more himself, more manlike, when joy is the fundamental thing and grief superficial.”

G.K. Chesterton

Image