G.K. Chesterton Quotes

An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.

The perplexity of life arises from there being too many interesting things in it for us to be interested properly in any of them.

The family is the test of freedom; because the family is the only thing that the free man makes for himself and by himself.

Any one thinking of the Holy Child as born in December would mean by it exactly what we mean by it; that Christ is not merely a summer sun of the prosperous but a winter fire for the unfortunate.

A child's instinct is almost perfect in the matter of fighting. The child's hero is always the man or boy who defends himself suddenly and splendidly against aggression.

A woman uses her intelligence to find reasons to support her intuition.

Drink because you are happy, but never because you are miserable.

Variability is one of the virtues of a woman. It avoids the crude requirement of polygamy. So long as you have one good wife you are sure to have a spiritual harem".

London is a riddle. Paris is an explanation.

Coincidences are spiritual puns.

Do not free a camel of the burden of his hump; you may be freeing him from being a camel.

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

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

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.

Bigotry may be roughly defined as the anger of men who have no opinions.

There are no new lies, no new heresies. Man is simply not that creative.

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

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

Dipsomaniac and the abstainer are not only both mistaken, but they both make the same mistake. They both regard wine as a drug and not as a drink.

To be wrong, and to be carefully wrong, that is the definition of decadence.

A crown of roses is also a crown of thorns.

They say travel broadens the mind, but you must have the mind.

The test of happiness is gratitude.

At the back of our brains is a blaze of astonishment at our own existence. The object of the artistic and spiritual life is to dig for this sunrise of wonder.

Journalism largely consists of saying 'Lord Jones is Dead' to people who never knew that Lord Jones was alive.

God is not a symbol of goodness; goodness is a symbol of God

A businessman is the only man who is forever apologizing for his occupation.

Democracy is reproached with saying that the majority is always right. But progress says that the minority is always right.

One must somehow find a way of loving the world without trusting it; somehow one must love the world without being worldly.

The people has no definite disbelief in the temples of theology. The people has a very fiery and practical disbelief in the temples of physical science.

Once abolish the God, and the Government becomes the God.

It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never gotten tired of making them

I will go forth as a real outlaw," he said, "and as men do robbery on the highway I will do right on the highway; and it will be counted a wilder crime.

There is no logical connection between flying and laying eggs.

Those who leave the tradition of truth do not escape into something which we call Freedom. They only escape into something else, which we call Fashion.

Certain new theologians dispute original sin, which is the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved.

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

All conservatism is based upon the idea that if you leave things alone you leave them as they are. But you do not. If you leave a thing alone you leave it to a torrent of change.

No man who worships education has got the best out of education... Without a gentle contempt for education no man's education is complete.

The thing I hate about an argument is that it always interrupts a discussion.

He is a [sane] man who can have tragedy in his heart and comedy in his head.

I would never commit the positively anti-social action of robbing a bank, or worse still, working in one.

Compromise used to mean that half a loaf was better than no bread. Among modern statesmen it really seems to mean that half a loaf; is better than a whole loaf.

These are the days when the Christian is expected to praise every creed except his own.

To downgrade the human mind is bad theology.

We need to be reminded more than we need to be instructed

The chief object of education is not to learn things but to unlearn things.

There are those who hate Christianity and call their hatred an all-embracing love for all religions.

Individually, men may present a more or less rational appearance, eating, sleeping, and scheming. But humanity a a whole is changeful, mystical, fickle, delightful. Men are men, but Man is a woman.

If man is not the image of God, then he is a disease of the dust.