Quotes & Sayings About G.k

little things please great minds. — G.K. Chesterton

Dr K. relishes the pleasures (but only, as he notes himself, the pleasures) of being declassed. — W.G. Sebald

The moment we begin to give a nation the unity and simplicity of an animal, we begin to think wildly. Because every man is a biped, fifty men are not a centipede. — G.K. Chesterton

And under all this vast illusion of the cosmopolitan planet, with its empires and its Reuter's agency, the real life of man goes on concerned with this tree or that temple, with this harvest or that drinking-song, totally uncomprehended, totally untouched. And it watches from its splendid parochialism, possibly with a smile of amusement, motor-car civilization going its triumphant way, outstripping time, consuming space, seeing all and seeing nothing, roaring on at last to the capture of the solar system, only to find the sun cockney and the stars suburban. — G.K. Chesterton

What are blue-stockings?' asked Tommy.
Naturally you don't know,' replied the other. 'If you did, you would sympathize more with Bluebeard. They were ladies who were always reading books. They even read them aloud. — G.K. Chesterton

Aristotle had described the magnanimous man, who is great and knows that he is great. But Aristotle would never have recovered his own greatness, but for the miracle that created the more magnanimous man; who is great and knows that he is small. — G.K. Chesterton

An enormous amount of modern ingenuity is expended on finding defences for the indefensible conduct of the powerful. As I have said above, these defences generally exhibit themselves most emphatically in the form of appeals to physical science. And of all the forms in which science, or pseudo-science, has come to the rescue of the rich and stupid, there is none so singular as the singular invention of the theory of races. — G.K. Chesterton

tradition is only democracy extended through time. — G.K. Chesterton

People talk about the impatience of the populace; but sound historians know that most tyrannies have been possible because men moved too late. It is often essential to resist a tyranny before it exists. It is no answer to say, with a distant optimism, that the scheme is only in the air. A blow from a hatchet can only be parried while it is in the air. — G.K. Chesterton

One definition occurred to both of them - that he had come out into the light of that lucid and radiant ignorance in which all beliefs had begun. The sky above them was full of mythology. Heaven seemed deep enough to hold all the gods. — G.K. Chesterton

Very deep things in our nature, some dim sense of the dependence of great things upon small, some dark suggestion that the things nearest to us stretch far beyond our power, some sacramental feeling of the magic in material substances, and many more emotions past fading out, are in an idea like that of the external soul. The power even in the myths of savages is like the power in the metaphors of poets. The soul of such a metaphor is often very emphatically an external soul. — G.K. Chesterton

Go on," said the priest very gently. "We are only trying to find the truth. What are you afraid of?" "I am afraid of finding it," said Flambeau. — G.K. Chesterton

The devil can quote Scripture for his purpose; and the text of Scripture which he now most commonly quotes is, "The Kingdom of heaven is within you." That text has been the stay and support of more Pharisees and prigs and self-righteous spiritual bullies than all the dogmas in creation; it has served to identify self-satisfaction with the peace that passes all understanding. And the text to be quoted in answer to it is that which declares that no man can receive the kingdom except as a little child. What we are to have inside is a childlike spirit; but the childlike spirit is not entirely concerned about what is inside. It is the first mark of possessing it that one is interested in what is outside. The most childlike thing about a child is his curiosity and his appetite and his power of wonder at the world. We might almost say that the whole advantage of having the kingdom within is that we look for it somewhere else. — G.K. Chesterton

I still think sincere pessimism the unpardonable sin. — G.K. Chesterton

That peril is that the human intellect is free to destroy itself. Just as one generation could prevent the very existence of the next generation, by all entering a monastery or jumping into the sea, so one set of thinkers can in some degree prevent further thinking by teaching the next generation that there is no validity in any human thought. It is idle to talk always of the alternative of reason and faith. Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all. If you are merely a sceptic, you must sooner or later ask yourself the question, "Why should anything go right; even observation and deduction? Why should not good logic be as misleading as bad logic? They are both movements in the brain of a bewildered ape?" The young sceptic says, "I have a right to think for myself." But the old sceptic, the complete sceptic, says, "I have no right to think for myself. I have no right to think at all." There — G.K. Chesterton

Strike a glass and it will not endure an instant. Simply do not strike it and it will endure a thousand years. — G.K. Chesterton

You will hear everlastingly, in all discussions about newspapers, companies, aristocracies, or party politics, this argument that the rich man cannot be bribed. The fact is, of course, that the rich man is bribed; he has been bribed already. That is why he is a rich man. The whole case for Christianity is that a man who is dependent upon the luxuries of this life is a corrupt man, spiritually corrupt, politically corrupt, financially corrupt. — G.K. Chesterton

If there is one fact we really can prove, from the history that we really do know, it is that despotism can be a development, often a late development and very often indeed the end of societies that have been highly democratic. A despotism may almost be defined as a tired democracy. As fatigue falls on a community, the citizens are less inclined for that eternal vigilance which has truly been called the price of liberty; and they prefer to arm only one single sentinel to watch the city while they sleep. — G.K. Chesterton

Chastity does not mean abstention from sexual wrong; it means something flaming, like Joan of Arc. — G.K. Chesterton

God alone knows what the conscience can survive, or how a man who has lost his honor will still try to save his soul. — G.K. Chesterton

Father, you know us in secret, and you know all our secret places.
What we do to benefit your kingdom will not be lost if it is not seen by others,
for you see and you reward according to your grace and mercy.
Strengthen us to do good works, visibly or invisibly, always in your name. — G.K. Chesterton

Our existence may not be an intelligible justice, or even a recognizable wrong. But our existence is still a story. In the fiery alphabet of every sunset is written, "to be continued in our next." If — G.K. Chesterton

An event is not any more intrinsically intelligible or unintelligible because of the pace at which it moves. For a man who does not believe in a miracle, a slow miracle would be just as incredible as a swift one. The Greek witch may have turned sailors to swine with a stroke of the wand. But to see a naval gentleman of our acquaintance looking a little more like a pig every day, till he ended with four trotters and a curly tail, would not be any more soothing. It might be rather more creepy and uncanny. — G.K. Chesterton

The only possible excuse for this book is that it is an answer to a challenge. Even a bad shot is dignified when he accepts a duel. — G.K. Chesterton

Unless we are all mad, there is at the back of the most bewildering business a story: and if we are all mad, there is no such thing as madness. If I set a house on fire, it is quite true that I may illuminate many other people's weaknesses as well as my own. It may be that the master of the house was burned because he was drunk; it may be that the mistress of the house was burned because she was stingy, and perished arguing about the expense of the fire-escape. It is, nevertheless, broadly true that they both were burned because I set fire to their house. — G.K. Chesterton

That which is large enough for the rich to covet," said Wayne, drawing up his head, "is large enough for the poor to defend. — G.K. Chesterton

The wisest thing in the world is to cry out before you are hurt. It is no good to cry out after you are hurt; especially after you are mortally hurt. People talk about the impatience of the populace; but sound historians know that most tyrannies have been possible because men moved too late. it is often essential to resist a tyranny before it exists. — G.K. Chesterton

There is nothing which is so weak for working purposes as the enormous importance attached to immediate victory. — G.K. Chesterton

Art is the signature of man. — G.K. Chesterton

The only persons who seem to have nothing to do with the education of the children are the parents. — G.K. Chesterton

The great majority of people will go on observing forms that cannot be explained; they will keep Christmas Day with Christmas gifts and Christmas benedictions; they will continue to do it; and some day suddenly wake up and discover why. — G.K. Chesterton

One of my heroes, G.K. Chesterton, said, "The old fairy tales endure forever. The old fairy tale makes the hero a normal human boy; it is his adventures that are startling; they startle him because he is normal." Discovering that the modern world can still contain the wonder and strangeness of a fairy tale is part of what my novels are about. — Regina Doman

It is ludicrous to suppose that the more sceptical we are the more we see good in everything. It is clear that the more we are certain what good is, the more we shall see good in everything. — G.K. Chesterton

The whole point of the Eugenic pseudo-scientific theories is that they are to be applied wholesale, by some more sweeping and generalizing money power than the individual husband or wife or household. Eugenics asserts that all men must be so stupid that they cannot manage their own affairs; and also so clever that they can manage each other's. — G.K. Chesterton

The word 'heresy' not only means no longer being wrong; it practically means being clear-headed and courageous. The word 'orthodoxy' not only no longer means being right; it practically means being wrong. — G.K. Chesterton

Good taste, the last and vilest of human superstitions, has succeeded in silencing us where all the rest has failed. — G.K. Chesterton

This is the age in which thin and theoretic minorities can cover and conquer unconscious and untheoretic majorities. — G.K. Chesterton

Poor old G.K.C.! It's too bad he didn't live to see the change. What paradoxes he would have dreamed up! — Poul Anderson

Even the moon is only poetical because there is a man in the moon. — G.K. Chesterton

Life is indeed terribly complicated - to a man who has lost his principles. — G.K. Chesterton

We are Christians and Catholics not because we worship a key, but because we have passed a door; and felt the wind that is the trumpet of liberty blow over the land of the living. — G.K. Chesterton

the schoolboy had something of the stolid air of a young duke doing the grand tour, while his elderly relative was reduced to the position of a courier, who nevertheless had to pay for everything like a patron. — G.K. Chesterton

If a man prefers nothing I can give him nothing. But nearly all people I have ever met in this western society in which I live would agree to the general proposition that we need this life of practical romance; the combination of something that is strange with something that is secure. We need so to view the world as to combine an idea of wonder and an idea of welcome. We need to be happy in this wonderland without once being merely comfortable. It is this achievement of my creed that I shall chiefly pursue in these pages. — G.K. Chesterton

It is quite certain that the skirt means female dignity, not female submission; it can be proved by the simplest of all tests. No ruler would deliberately dress up in the recognized fetters of a slave; no judge would would appear covered with broad arrows. But when men wish to be safely impressive, as judges, priests or kings, they do wear skirts, the long, trailing robes of female dignity. The whole world is under petticoat government; for even men wear petticoats when they wish to govern. — G.K. Chesterton

Old G.K. knew when to fast and when to down a good ale. It's the timing. It's all in the timing. [On G.K. Chesterton] — Michael D. O'Brien

The men of the East may spell the stars,
And times and triumphs mark,
But the men signed of the cross of Christ
Go gaily in the dark. — G.K. Chesterton

The modern world seems to have no notion of preserving different things side by side, of allowing its proper and proportionate place to each, of saving the whole varied heritage of culture. It has no notion except that of simplifying something by destroying nearly everything. — G.K. Chesterton

You cannot finish a sum how you like. But you can finish a story how you like. — G.K. Chesterton

The true soldier fights — G.K. Chesterton

You say grace before meals. I say grace before I dip the pen in the ink. — G.K. Chesterton

There is no such thing as education. The thing is merely a loose phrase for the passing on to others of whatever truth or virtue we happen to have ourselves. It is typical of our time that the more doubtful we are about the value of philosophy, the more certain we are about the value of education. That is to say, the more doubtful we are about whether we have any truth, the more certain we are (apparently) that we can teach it to our children. — G.K. Chesterton

And the greatest of the poets, when he defined the poet, did not say that he gave us the universe or the absolute or the infinite; but, in his own larger language, a local habitation and a name. — G.K. Chesterton

Tolerance is the last virtue of a man without principle. — G.K. Chesterton

Syme strolled with her to a seat in the corner of the garden, and continued to pour out his opinions. For he was a sincere man, and in spite of his superficial airs and graces, at root a humble one. And it is always the humble man who talks too much; the proud man watches himself too closely. He — G.K. Chesterton

Man is not merely an evolution but rather a revolution. — G.K. Chesterton

It is the fear of the past; a fear not merely of the evil in the past, but of the good in the past also. The brain breaks down under the unbearable virtue of mankind. There have been so many flaming faiths that we cannot hold; so many harsh heroisms that we cannot imitate; so many great efforts of monumental building or of military glory which seems to us at once sublime and pathetic. The future is a refuge from the fierce competition of our forefathers. — G.K. Chesterton

There was one special thing you promised me at the beginning of the affair, and which you have certainly given me by the end of it."
"What do you mean?" cried the chaotic Gregory. "What did I promise you?"
"A very entertaining evening," said Syme, and he made a military salute with his sword-stick as the steamboart slid away. — G.K. Chesterton

The Fear of the Lord, that is the beginning of wisdom, and therefore belongs to the beginnings, and is felt in the first cold hours before the dawn of civilisation; the power that comes out of the wilderness and rides on the whirlwind and breaks the gods of stone; the power before which the eastern nations are prostrate like a pavement; the power before which the primitive prophets run naked and shouting, at once proclaiming and escaping from their god; the fear that is rightly rooted in the beginnings of every religion, true or false: the fear of the Lord, that is the beginning of wisdom; but not the end. — G.K. Chesterton

it reminded me that there was in the world of to-day that utterly idiotic thing, a worship of success; a thing that only means surpassing anybody in anything; a thing that may mean being the most successful person in running away from a battle; a thing that may mean being the most successfully sleepy of the whole row of sleeping men. — G.K. Chesterton

The materialist is sure that history has been simply and solely a chain of causation, just as the [lunatic] is quite sure that he is simply and solely a chicken. Materialists and madmen never have doubts. — G.K. Chesterton

It was his home now. But it could not be his home till he had gone from it and returned to it. Now he was the Prodigal Son. — G.K. Chesterton

Even in an empire of atheists the dead man is always sacred. — G.K. Chesterton

Cheerfulness without humour is a very trying thing. — G.K. Chesterton

Somehow one must love the world without being worldly. — G.K. Chesterton

It is hard to make government representative when it is also remote. — G.K. Chesterton

It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God has never got tired of making them ... The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical encore. — G.K. Chesterton

The madman's explanation of a thing is always complete, and often in a purely rational sense satisfactory. Or, to speak more strictly, the insane explanation, if not conclusive, is at least unanswerable; this may be observed specially in the two or three commonest kinds of madness. If a man says (for instance) that men have a conspiracy against him, you cannot dispute it except by saying that all the men deny that they are conspirators; which is exactly what conspirators would do. His explanation covers the facts as much as yours. Or if a man says that he is the rightful King of England, it is no complete answer to say that the existing authorities call him mad; for if he were King of England that might be the wisest thing for the existing authorities to do. Or if a man says that he is Jesus Christ, it is no answer to tell him that the world denies his divinity; for the world denied Christ's. — G.K. Chesterton

The modern instinct is that if the heart of man is evil, there is nothing that remains good. But the older feeling was that if the heart of man was ever so evil, there was something that remained good
goodness remained good. — G.K. Chesterton

In dealing with the arrogant asserter of doubt, it is not the right method to tell him to stop doubting. It is rather the right method to tell him to go on doubting , to doubt a little more, to doubt every day newer and wilder things in the universe, until at last, by some strange enlightenment, he may begin to doubt himself. — G.K. Chesterton

Do not look at the faces in the illustrated papers. Look at the faces in the street. — G.K. Chesterton

When there aren't enough hats to go around the problem isn't solved by lopping off some heads. — G.K. Chesterton

There is a phrase of facile liberality uttered again and again at ethical societies and parliaments of religion: "the religions of the earth differ in rites and forms, but they are the same in what they teach." It is false; it is the opposite of the fact. The religions of the earth do not greatly differ in rites and forms; they do greatly differ in what they teach. — G.K. Chesterton

Cosmopolitanism gives us one country, and it is good; nationalism gives us a hundred countries, and every one of them is the best. Cosmopolitanism offers a positive, patriotism a chorus of superlatives. Patriotism begins the praise of the world at the nearest thing, instead of beginning it at the most distant, and thus it insures what is, perhaps, the most essential of all earthly considerations, that nothing upon earth shall go without its due appreciation. Wherever there is a strangely-shaped mountain upon some lonely island, wherever there is a nameless kind of fruit growing in some obscure forest, patriotism insures that this shall not go into darkness without being remembered in a song. — G.K. Chesterton

Tradition means giving a vote to most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. — G.K. Chesterton

His principle can be quite simply stated: he refuses to die while he is still alive. He seeks to remind himself, by every electric shock to the intellect, that he is still a man alive, walking on two legs about the world. For this reason he fires bullets at his best friends; for this reason he arranges ladders and collapsible chimneys to steal his own property; for this reason he goes plodding around a whole planet to get back to his own home; and for this reason he has been in the habit of taking the woman whom he loved with a permanent loyalty, and leaving her about (so to speak) at schools, boarding-houses, and places of business, so that he might recover her again and again with a raid and a romantic elopement. He seriously sought by a perpetual recapture of his bride to keep alive the sense of her perpetual value, and the perils that should be run for her sake. — G.K. Chesterton

Reason is always reasonable, even in the last limbo, in the lost borderland of all things. I know that people charge the Church with lowering reason, but it is really the other way. Alone on earth, the Church makes reason really supreme. Alone on earth, the Church affirms that God Himself is bound by reason. — G.K. Chesterton

Unless a man is in part a humorist, he is only in part a man. — G.K. Chesterton

Pragmatism is a matter of human needs; and one of the first of human needs is to be something more than a pragmatist. — G.K. Chesterton

The objection to fairy stories is that they tell children there are dragons, but children have always known there are dragons. Fairy stories tell children that dragons can be killed. — G.K. Chesterton

If I can put one touch of rosy sunset into the life of any man or woman, I shall feel that I have worked with God. — G.K. Chesterton

The modern city is ugly not because it is a city but because it is not enough of a city, because it is a jungle, because it is confused and anarchic, and surging with selfish and materialistic energies. — G.K. Chesterton

When some English moralists write about the importance of having character, they appear to mean only the importance of having a dull character. — G.K. Chesterton

But it's my reading of human nature that a man will cheat in his trade, but not in his hobby. — G.K. Chesterton

Your offer," he said, "is far too idiotic to be declined. — G.K. Chesterton

Whenever possible Chesterton made his points with popular sayings, proverbs, allegories - first carefully turning them inside out. — G.K. Chesterton

We are all revenants; all living Christians are dead pagans walking about. — G.K. Chesterton

Syme felt moved to spring up and leap over the balcony. When the President's eyes were on him he felt as if he were made of glass. He had hardly the shred of a doubt that in some silent and extraordinary way Sunday had found out that he was a spy. He looked over the edge of the balcony, and saw a policeman, standing abstractedly just beneath, staring at the bright railings and the sunlit trees. — G.K. Chesterton

There is nothing the matter with Americans except their ideals. The real American is all right; it is the ideal American who is all wrong. — G.K. Chesterton

If you want to know what you are, you are a set of highly well-intentioned young jackasses. — G.K. Chesterton

"vers libre," (free verse) or nine-tenths of it, is not a new metre any more than sleeping in a ditch is a new school of architecture. — G.K. Chesterton

We are too fond nowadays of committing the sin of fear and calling it the virtue of reverence. — G.K. Chesterton

One may understand the cosmos, but never the ego; the self is more distant than any star. — G.K. Chesterton

We are perishing for want of wonder, not for want of wonders. — G.K. Chesterton

Modern intelligence won't accept anything on authority. But it will accept anything without authority. — G.K. Chesterton

The devil takes us to the top of an exceeding high mountain and makes us dizzy; but God lets us look at the mountain. — G.K. Chesterton

Christianity is always out of fashion because it is always sane; and all fashions are mild insanities. When Italy is mad on art the Church seems too Puritanical; when England is mad on Puritanism the Church seems too artistic. When you quarrel with us now you class us with kingship and despotism; but when you quarrelled with us first it was because we would not accept the divine despotism of Henry VIII. The Church always seems to be behind the times, when it is really beyond the times; it is waiting till the last fad shall have seen its last summer. It keeps the key of a permanent virtue. — G.K. Chesterton

Before the gods that made the gods had seen their sunrise pass, the white horse of the white horse vale was cut out of the grass — G.K. Chesterton

I mean,' he said with increasing vehemence, 'that if there be a house for me in heaven it will either have a green lamp-post and a hedge, or something quite as positive and personal as a green lamp-post and a hedge. I mean that God bade me love one spot and serve it, and do all things however wild in praise of it, so that this one spot might be a witness against all the infinities and the sophistries, that Paradise is somewhere and not anywhere, is something and not anything. And I would not be so very much surprised if the house in heaven had a real green lamp-post after all. — G.K. Chesterton

When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become capable of believing in anything. — G.K. Chesterton

There is a road from the eye to the heart that does not go through the intellect. — G.K. Chesterton