Top 100 Chesterton's Quotes
#1. Like the Society for Creative Anachronism, The Ballad of the White Horse depicted "the Middle Ages as they should have been." Chesterton's ballad made a lasting impression on Robert E. Howard, who praised it in letters to his friend Clyde Smith.
Joseph Laycock
#2. I started reading G. K. Chesterton's 'The Man Who Was Thursday' on a subway ride, almost missed my stop, and walked home thumbing pages.
Kate Christensen
#3. A cynic once told G. K. Chesterton, the British novelist and essayist, "Blessed is he who expecteth nothing, for he shall not be disappointed." Chesterton's rejoinder? "Blessed is he who expecteth nothing, for he shall enjoy everything.
Benjamin Graham
#4. British writer G. K. Chesterton's reply to an invitation by the Times to write an essay on the subject "What's Wrong with the World?" Chesterton's response: Dear Sirs, I am. Sincerely, G. K. Chesterton
Dale Carnegie
#5. That big fat oaf Gil Chesterton once said that the criminal is the artist, the detective only the critic ... he was wrong. I was an artist, for it is an artist's purpose to make order out of chaos. A criminal defaces; a detective restores.
Lavie Tidhar
#7. When once one believes in a creed, one is proud of its complexity, as scientists are proud of the complexity of science. It shows how rich it is in discoveries. If it is right at all, it is a compliment to say that it's elaborately right.
G.K. Chesterton
#8. why, nobody's ever survived it! Look at all the people married since Adam and Eve - and all as dead as mutton.
G.K. Chesterton
#9. Our society is so abnormal that the normal man never dreams of having the normal occupation of looking after his own property. When he chooses a trade, he chooses one of the ten thousand trades that involve looking after other people's property.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
#10. It's not that we don't have enough scoundrels to curse; it's that we don't have enough good men to curse them.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
#11. You start reading C.S. Lewis, then you're reading G.K. Chesterton, then you're a Catholic.
Ross Douthat
#12. Has it never struck you that a man who does next to nothing but hear men's real sins is not likely to be wholly unaware of human evil?
G.K. Chesterton
#13. When belief in God becomes difficult, the tendency is to turn away from Him; but in heaven's name to what?
Gilbert K. Chesterton
#14. When will people understand that it is useless for a man to read his Bible unless he also reads everybody else's Bible?
G.K. Chesterton
#15. Democracy tells us not to neglect a good man's opinion, even if he is our groom; tradition asks us not to neglect a good man's opinion, even if he is our father.
G.K. Chesterton
#16. The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one's own country as a foreign land.
G.K. Chesterton
#17. For the critics who think Chesterton frivolous or 'paradoxical' I have to work hard to feel even pity; sympathy is out of the question.
C.S. Lewis
#18. I suppose you can guess the whole story now? After all, it's a primitive story. A man had two enemies. He was a wise man. And so he discovered that two enemies are better than one.
G.K. Chesterton
#19. The mind that finds its way to wild places is the poet's; but the mind that never finds its way back is the lunatic's.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
#20. There are many ways to fall down, but there's only one way to stand up straight.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
#21. Democracy is like blowing your nose. You may not do it well, but it's something you ought to do yourself.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
#22. To hurry through one's leisure is the most unbusiness-like of actions.
G.K. Chesterton
#23. I wish the world had been made in six days, and knocked to pieces again in six more. And I wish I had done it. The joke's good enough in a broad way, sun and moon and the image of God, and all that, but they keep it up so damnably long.
G.K. Chesterton
#24. A man's minor actions and arrangements ought to be free, flexible, creative; the things that should be unchangeable are his principles, his ideals. But with us the reverse is true; our views change constantly; but our lunch does not change.
G.K. Chesterton
#25. When one of England's finest writers, G. K. Chesterton, spoke of "the furious love of God," he was referencing the enormous vitality and strength of the God of Jesus seeking union with us.
Brennan Manning
#26. When everything about a people is for the time growing weak and ineffective, it begins to talk about efficiency. So it is that when a man's body is a wreck he begins, for the first time, to talk about health. Vigorous organisms talk not about their processes, but about their aims.
G.K. Chesterton
#27. The one perfectly divine thing, the one glimpse of God's paradise given on earth, is to fight a losing battle - and not lose it.
G.K. Chesterton
#28. But it's my reading of human nature that a man will cheat in his trade, but not in his hobby.
G.K. Chesterton
#29. Christianity satisfies suddenly and perfectly man's ancestral instinct for being the right way up; satisfies it supremely in this, that by its creed Joy becomes something gigantic, and Sadness something special and small.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
#30. What is the modern mind?" asked Grant.
"Oh, it's enlightened, you know, and progressive
and faces the facts of life seriously." At this moment another roar of laughter came from within.
G.K. Chesterton
#31. When you with velvets mantled o'er, Defy December's tempests frore, Oh! spare one garment from your store, To clothe the poor at Christmas.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
#32. If after all my Atheology turns out wrong and your Theology right I feel I shall always be able to pass into Heaven (if I want to) as a friend of G.K.C.'s. Bless you.
H.G.Wells
#33. Dog doesn't eat dog, and doctors don't bite doctors, not even when they are mad doctors. I shouldn't care to cast any reflection on my eminent predecessor in Potter's Pond, if I could avoid it;
G.K. Chesterton
#34. Teach to the young, men's enduring truths, and let the learned amuse themselves with their passing errors.
G.K. Chesterton
#35. The Skeleton
Chattering finch and water-fly
Are not merrier than I;
Here among the flowers I lie
Laughing everlastingly.
No: I may not tell the best;
Surely, friends, I might have guessed
Death was but the good King's jest,
It was hid so carefully.
G.K. Chesterton
#37. When fishes flew and forests walked
And figs grew upon thorn,
Some moment when the moon was blood
Then surely I was born.
With monstrous head and sickening cry
And ears like errant wings,
The devil's walking parody
On all four-footed things.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
#38. A good man's work is effected by doing what he does, a woman's by being what she is.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
#39. One can hardly think too little of one's self. One can hardly think too much of one's soul.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
#40. The center of every man's existence is a dream. Death, disease, insanity, are merely material accidents, like a toothache or a twisted ankle. That these brutal forces always besiege and often capture the citadel does not prove that they are the citadel.
G.K. Chesterton
#41. There is no better test of a man's ultimate chivalry and integrity than how he behaves when he is wrong ... A stiff apology is a second insult.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
#42. This man's spiritual power has been precisely this, that he has distinguished between custom and creed. He has broken the conventions, but he has kept the commandments.
G.K. Chesterton
#43. The Reformer is always right about what's wrong. However, he's often wrong about what is right.
G.K. Chesterton
#44. Do you remember what Douglas said when Marmion, his guest, offered to shake hands with him?" "Yes," said Father Brown. "'My castles are my king's alone, from turret to foundation stone,'" said Musgrave. "'The hand of Douglas is his own.'" He
G.K. Chesterton
#45. But if I want to murder somebody, will it really be the best plan to make sure I'm alone with him?'
Lord Pooley's eyes recovered their frosty twinkle as he looked at the little clergyman. He only said: 'If you want to murder somebody, I should advise it.
G.K. Chesterton
#46. It is unpardonable conceit not to laugh at your own jokes. Joking is undignified; that is why it is so good for one's soul. Do not fancy you can be a detached wit and avoid being a buffoon; you cannot. If you are the Court Jester you must be the Court Fool.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
#47. 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
#48. It's natural to believe in the supernatural. It never feels natural to accept only natural things.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
#49. If you know what a man's doing, get in front of him; but if you want to guess what he's doing, keep behind him.
G.K. Chesterton
#50. My brain feels like a bomb, night and day. It must expand! It must expand! A man's brain must expand, if it breaks up the universe.
G.K. Chesterton
#51. But as a matter of fact, another part of my trade, too, made me sure you weren't a priest."
"What?" asked the thief, almost gaping.
"You attacked reason," said Father Brown. "It's bad theology.
G.K. Chesterton
#52. Conjurer: Oh, I don't mind anyone knowing everything, Miss Carleon. There is something that is much more important than knowing how a thing is done.
Morris: And what's that?
Conjurer: Knowing how to do it.
G.K. Chesterton
#53. But since he stood for England And knew what England means, Unless you give him bacon You must not give him beans.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
#55. We do not want joy and anger to neutralize each other and produce a surly contentment; we want a fiercer delight and a fiercer discontent. We have to feel the universe at once as an ogre's castle, to be stormed, and yet as our own cottage, to which we can return to at evening.
G.K. Chesterton
#56. Goo-goo goo-goo goo-goo goo
Goo-goo goo-goo goo-goo
Googly, googly, googly goo:
That's how we fill a column.
G.K. Chesterton
#57. It's not the world that's got so much worse but the news coverage that's got so much better.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
#58. Reason is always a kind of brute force; those who appeal to the head rather than the heart, however pallid and polite, are necessarily men of violence. We speak of 'touching' a man's heart, but we can do nothing to his head but hit it.
G.K. Chesterton
#59. You've only talked like that since you became a horrid what's-his-name. You know what I mean. What do you call a man who wants to embrace the chimney-sweep?" "A saint," said Father Brown. "I think," said Sir Leopold, with a supercilious smile, "that Ruby means a Socialist.
G.K. Chesterton
#60. There's a lot of difference between listening and hearing.
G.K. Chesterton
#61. The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht.
G.K. Chesterton
#62. That wild word, "Moor Eeffoc," is the motto of all effective realism; it is the masterpiece of the good realistic principle - the principle that the most fantastic thing of all is often the precise fact.
G.K. Chesterton
#63. And I offer this book with the heartiest sentiments to all the jolly people who hate what I write, and regard it (very justly, for all I know), as a piece of poor clowning or a single tiresome joke.
G.K. Chesterton
#64. Let a man walk ten miles steadily on a hot summer's day along a dusty English road, and he will soon discover why beer was invented.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
#65. The optimist's pleasure was prosaic, for it dwelt on the naturalness of everything; the Christian pleasure was poetic, for it dwelt on the unnaturalness of everything in the light of the supernatural.
G.K. Chesterton
#66. A citizen can hardly distinguish between a tax and a fine, except that the fine is generally much lighter.
G.K. Chesterton
#67. The worst moment for an atheist is when he feels a profound sense of gratitude and has no one to thank.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
#68. In the glad old days, before the rise of modern morbidities ... it used to be thought a disadvantage to be misunderstood.
G.K. Chesterton
#69. 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
#70. Just at present you only see the tree by the light of the lamp. I wonder when you would ever see the lamp by the light of the tree.
G.K. Chesterton
#71. I have a suspicion that you are all mad,' said Dr. Renard, smiling sociably; 'but God forbid that madness should in any way interrupt friendship.
G.K. Chesterton
#72. Eugenics, as discussed, evidently means the control of some men
over the marriage and unmarriage of others; and probably means the
control of the few over the marriage and unmarriage of the many
G.K. Chesterton
#73. Dear Sir: Regarding your article 'What's Wrong with the World?' I am. Yours truly,
G.K. Chesterton
#74. No man who worships education has got the best out of education ... Without a gentle contempt for education no man's education is complete.
G.K. Chesterton
#75. Millions of women rose up, said G. K. Chesterton, to declare that they would no longer be dictated to, and promptly became stenographers.
Anthony Esolen
#77. Obviously if any actions, even a lunatic's, can be causeless, determinism is done for. If the chain of causation can be broken for a madman, it can be broken for a man.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
#78. Despite the almost aggressive touch of luxury in the fur coat, it soon became apparent that Sir Walter's large leonine head was for use as well as ornament, and he considered the matter soberly and sanely enough.
G.K. Chesterton
#79. As an explanation of the world materialism has a sort of insane simplicity. It has the quality of a madman's arguments; we have at once the sense of it covering everything and the sense of it leaving everything out.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
#80. Original sin is the only doctrine that's been empirically validated by 2,000 years of human history.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
#81. I will not engage in verbal controversy with the sceptic, because long experience has taught me that the sceptic's ultimate skepticism is about the use of his own words and the reliability of his own intelligence.
G.K. Chesterton
#82. The way to build a church is not to pay for it, certainly not with somebody else's money. The way to build a church is not even to pay for it with your own money. The way to build a church is to build it.
G.K. Chesterton
#83. If it's worth doing, it's worth doing badly. (on not perfectionism to put things off) .
Gilbert K. Chesterton
#84. The priest looked puzzled also, as if at his own thoughts; he sat with knotted brow and then said abruptly: 'You see, it's so easy to be misunderstood. All men matter. You matter. I matter. It's the hardest thing in theology to believe.
G.K. Chesterton
#85. Oh, what's the good of talking about men?" cried Mary impatiently; "why, one might as well be a lady novelist or some horrid thing. There aren't any men. There are no such people. There's a man; and whoever he is he's quite different.
G.K. Chesterton
#86. He may be mad, but there's method in his madness. There nearly always is method in madness. It's what drives men mad, being methodical.
G.K. Chesterton
#87. There nearly always is method in madness. It's what drives men mad, being methodical. And he never goes on sitting there after sunset, with the whole place getting dark.
G.K. Chesterton
#88. It's the first effect of not believing in God that you lose your common sense.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
#89. Her finger-nails were painted five different colours, looking like the paints in a child's paintbox; and she was as innocent as a child.
G.K. Chesterton
#90. The trouble with Christianity is, not that its failed, but that it's never been tried ... not that it can't remake the world, but that it's difficult.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
#91. A good Moslem king was one who was strict in religion, valiant in battle, just in giving judgment among his people, but not one who had the slightest objection in international matters to removing his neighbour's landmark.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
#92. Can it be the old devil's house? I've heard he has a house in North London.
G.K. Chesterton
#93. For the moral basis, it is obvious that man's ethical responsibility varies with his knowledge of consequences
G.K. Chesterton
#94. It is always easy to let the age have its head; the difficult thing is to keep one's own.
G.K. Chesterton
#95. My brain and this world don't fit each other; and there's an end of it.
G.K. Chesterton
#96. He might be living on mice, but Chesterton does not look like an animal who is governed by his appetites. He's an ascetic, if Cathbad ever saw one.
Elly Griffiths
#97. The blank page is God's way of letting us know how hard it is to be God.
G.K. Chesterton
#98. Men spoke much in my boyhood about restricted or ruined men of genius: and it was common to say that many a man was a Great Might-Have-Been. To me it's a more solid and startling fact that any man in the street is a Great Might-Not-Have-Been.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
#99. When a newspaper posed the question, "What's Wrong with the World?" the Catholic thinker G. K. Chesterton reputedly wrote a brief letter in response: "Dear Sirs: I am. Sincerely Yours, G. K. Chesterton." That is the attitude of someone who has grasped the message of Jesus.
Timothy Keller
#100. Hell is God's great compliment to the reality of human freedom and the dignity of human choice.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
Famous Authors
Popular Topics
Scroll to Top
