Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes

Our digestions, going sacredly and silently right, that is the foundation of all poetry.

[Paradox is] truth standing on its head to gain attention.

I am a bad reporter because everything seems to me worth reporting; and a bad reviewer because every sentence in every book suggests a separate essay.

A third-class carriage is a community, while a first-class carriage is a place of wild hermits.

...a figure of speech can often get into a crack too small for a definition.

There is only one reason an intelligent person doesn't believe in miracles. He or she believes in materialism.

Every true artist feels that he is touching transcendental truths; that his images are shadows of things seen through the veil.

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

Always be comic in a tragedy. What the deuce else can you do?

It is well sometimes to half understand a poem in the same manner that we half understand the world.

By a curious confusion, many modern critics have passed from the proposition that a masterpiece may be unpopular to the other proposition that unless it is unpopular it cannot be a masterpiece.

Free verse is like free love; it is a contradiction in terms.

Most modern freedom is at root fear. It is not so much that we are too bold to endure rules; it is rather that we are too timid to endure responsibilities.

There are two kinds of people in the world, the conscious dogmatists and the unconscious dogmatists. I have always found myself that the unconscious dogmatists were by far the most dogmatic.

Customs are generally unselfish. Habits are nearly always selfish.

Love is not blind; that is the last thing that it is. Love is bound; and the more it is bound the less it is blind.

If you'd take your head home and boil it for a turnip it might be useful. I can't say. But it might.

It seems to me,' said the other, 'That you are simply seeking a pretext to insult the Marquis.' By George!' said Syme facing round and looking at him, 'What a clever chap you are!

Suppose, my dear Chadd, suppose it is we who are the idiots because we are not afraid of devils in the dark?

In truth, there are only two kinds of people; those who accept dogma and know it, and those who accept dogma and don't know it.

Excuse me if I enjoy myself rather obviously! I don't often have the luck to have a dream like this. It is new to me for a nightmare to lead me to a lobster. It is commonly the other way.

Oscar Wilde said that sunsets were not valued because we could not pay for sunsets. But Oscar Wilde was wrong; we can pay for sunsets. We can pay for them by not being Oscar Wilde.

But I was frightfully fond of the universe and wanted to address it by a diminutive. I often did so; and it never seemed to mind.

Only poor men get hanged.

The ignorant pronounce it Frood To cavil or applaud The well-informed pronounce it Froyd But I pronounce it Fraud.

Free verse'? You may as well call sleeping in a ditch 'free architecture'.

In anything that does cover the whole of your life - in your philosophy and your religion - you must have mirth. If you do not have mirth you will certainly have madness.

We are passing into a social phase in which unless a heroic effort is made for human dignity and freedom, gold will be the sole method of government and therefore the sole standard of manners.

The Catholic Church is like a thick steak, a glass of red wine, and a good cigar.

Your offer," he said, "is far too idiotic to be declined.

It was not the house that grew dull, but I that grew dull in it. My wife was better than all women, and yet I could not feel it.

In the end it will not matter to us whether we wrote well or ill; whether we fought with flails or reeds. It will matter to us greatly on what side we fought.

In the struggle for existence, it is only on those who hang on for ten minutes after all is hopeless, that hope begins to dawn.

Thinking in isolation and with pride ends in being an idiot.

Oh, most unhappy man,' he cried, 'try to be happy! You have red hair like your sister.' My red hair, like red flames, shall burn up the world,' said Gregory.

Progress should mean that we are always changing the world to fit the vision, instead we are always changing the vision.

There is a corollary to the conception of being too proud to fight. It is that the humble have to do most of the fighting.

I have little doubt that when St. George had killed the dragon he was heartily afraid of the princess.

Marriage is a duel to the death which no man of honour should decline.

Well, if I am not drunk, I am mad," replied Syme with perfect calm; "but I trust I can behave like a gentleman in either condition.

The modern materialists are not permitted to doubt; they are forbidden to believe.

Even a bad shot is dignified when he accepts a duel.

It is impossible without humility to enjoy anything - even pride.

Where does a wise man hide a leaf? In the forest. But what does he do if there is no forest? He grows a forest to hide it in.

What are we going to do?" asked the Professor. "At this moment," said Syme, with a scientific detachment, "I think we are going to smash into a lamppost.

I am the fool in this story, and no rebel shall hurl me from my throne.

I did try to found a little heresy of my own; and when I had put the last touches to it, I discovered that it was orthodoxy.

And though St. John saw many strange monsters in his vision, he saw no creature so wild as one of his own commentators.

if a man would make his world large, he must be always making himself small.

somehow one must love the world without being worldly.