Quotes By Gilbert K. Chesterton

Artistic temperament is the disease that afflicts amateurs.

Men always talk about the most important things to perfect strangers. In the perfect stranger we perceive man himself; the image of a God is not disguised by resemblances to an uncle or doubts of wisdom of a mustache.

The aim of life is appreciation; there is no sense in not appreciating things; and there is no sense in having more of them if you have less appreciation of them.

The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.

Happy is he who still loves something he loved in the nursery: He has not been broken in two by time; he is not two men, but one, and he has saved not only his soul but his life.

There is a great deal of difference between an eager man who wants to read a book and the tired man who wants a book to read.

A stiff apology is a second insult... The injured party does not want to be compensated because he has been wronged; he wants to be healed because he has been hurt.

Happiness is a mystery, like religion, and should never be rationalised.

The greenhorn is the ultimate victor in everything; it is he that gets the most out of life.

If I had only one sermon to preach it would be a sermon against pride.

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.

Experience which was once claimed by the aged is now claimed exclusively by the young.

The present condition of fame is merely fashion.

Art consists of limitation. The most beautiful part of every picture is the frame.

Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity.

Men feel that cruelty to the poor is a kind of cruelty to animals. They never feel that it is an injustice to equals; nay it is treachery to comrades.

The man who throws a bomb is an artist, because he prefers a great moment to everything.

Coincidences are spiritual puns.

A man who says that no patriot should attack the war until it is over... is saying no good son should warn his mother of a cliff until she has fallen.

The fatal metaphor of progress, which means leaving things behind us, has utterly obscured the real idea of growth, which means leaving things inside us.

The word "good" has many meanings. For example, if a man were to shoot his grandmother at a range of five hundred yards, I should call him a good shot, but not necessarily a good man.

To love means loving the unlovable. To forgive means pardoning the unpardonable. Faith means believing the unbelievable. Hope means hoping when everything seems hopeless.

In matters of truth the fact that you don't want to publish something is, nine times out of ten, a proof that you ought to publish it.

A puritan is a person who pours righteous indignation into the wrong things.

People who make history know nothing about history. You can see that in the sort of history they make.

What people call impartiality may simply mean indifference, and what people call partiality may simply mean mental activity.

Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another.

Democracy means government by the uneducated, while aristocracy means government by the badly educated.

New roads; new ruts.

Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to that arrogant oligarchy who merely happen to be walking around.