Quotes by Chesterton, Gilbert K.

"Our civilization has decided that determining the guilt or innocence of men is a thing too important to be trusted to trained men. When it wants a library catalogued, or the solar system discovered, or any trifle of that kind, it uses up its specialists. But when it wishes anything done which is really serious, it collects twelve of the ordinary men standing round. The same thing was done, if I remember right, by the Founder of Christianity."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on juries
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"One may understand the Cosmos, but never the ego; the self is more distant than any star."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on knowledge   

"But there is good news yet to hear and fine things to be seen before we go to Paradise by way of Kensal Green."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on death   

"When it comes to life the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on life
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"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."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on apologies
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"All architecture is great architecture after sunset; perhaps architecture is really a nocturnal art, like the art of fireworks."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on architecture   

"A building is akin to dogma; it is insolent, like dogma. Whether or no it is permanent, it claims permanence, like a dogma. People ask why we have no typical architecture of the modern world, like impressionism in painting. Surely it is obviously because we have not enough dogmas; we cannot bear to see anything in the sky that is solid and enduring, anything in the sky that does not change like the clouds of the sky."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on architecture   

"People generally quarrel because they cannot argue."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on argument
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"Soldiers have many faults, but they have one redeeming merit; they are never worshippers of force. Soldiers more than any other men are taught severely and systematically that might is not right. The fact is obvious. The might is in the hundred men who obey. The right (or what is held to be right) is in the one man who commands them."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on army and navy   

"The artistic temperament is a disease that affects amateurs. Artists of a large and wholesome vitality get rid of their art easily, as they breathe easily or perspire easily. But in artists of less force, the thing becomes a pressure, and produces a definite pain, which is called the artistic temperament."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on art   

"Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on art   

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

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on art   

"The dignity of the artist lies in his duty of keeping awake the sense of wonder in the world. In this long vigil he often has to vary his methods of stimulation; but in this long vigil he is also himself striving against a continual tendency to sleep."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on art   

"Love means to love that which is unlovable; or it is no virtue at all."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on love
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"The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on love
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"We are justified in enforcing good morals, for they belong to all mankind; but we are not justified in enforcing good manners, for good manners always mean our own manners."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on manners   

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"Marriage is an adventure, like going to war."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on marriage
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"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."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on men   

"The Museum is not meant either for the wanderer to see by accident or for the pilgrim to see with awe. It is meant for the mere slave of a routine of self-education to stuff himself with every sort of incongruous intellectual food in one indigestible meal."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on museums and galleries   

"We make our friends; we make our enemies; but God makes our next door neighbor."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on neighbors
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"Your next-door neighbor is not a man; he is an environment. He is the barking of a dog; he is the noise of a piano; he is a dispute about a party wall; he is drains that are worse than yours, or roses that are better than yours."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on neighbors   

"Nothing is poetical if plain daylight is not poetical; and no monster should amaze us if the normal man does not amaze."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on normality   

"They have given us into the hand of new unhappy lords. Lords without anger and honor, who dare not carry their swords. They fight by shuffling papers; they have bright dead alien eyes; They look at our labor and laughter as a tired man looks at flies."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on oppression   

"My country wrong or right, is like saying my mother, drunk or sober."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on patriotism
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"My country, right or wrong is a thing that no patriot would think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying My mother, drunk or sober."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on patriotism   

"But we are the people of England; and we have not spoken yet. Smile at us, pay us, pass us. But do not quite forget."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on people   

"If the barricades went up in our streets and the poor became masters, I think the priests would escape, I fear the gentlemen would; but I believe the gutters would simply be running with the blood of philanthropists."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on philanthropists   

"A new philosophy generally means in practice the praise of some old vice."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on philosophers and philosophy   

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"The most dangerous criminal now is the entirely lawless modern philosopher. Compared to him, burglars and bigamists are essentially moral men."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on philosophers and philosophy   

"The true object of all human life is play. Earth is a task garden; heaven is a playground."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on plays   

"Half a truth is better than no politics."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on politics   

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"Those thinkers who cannot believe in any gods often assert that the love of humanity would be in itself sufficient for them; and so, perhaps, it would, if they had it."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on atheism   

"The honest poor can sometimes forget poverty. The honest rich can never forget it."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on poverty and the poor   

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

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on pride
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"It isn't that they can't see the solution. It is that they can't see the problem."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on problems
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"New roads; new ruts."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on progress   

"Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on property   

"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."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on publishing and publishers
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"A puritan is a person who pours righteous indignation into the wrong things."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on puritans   

"Facts as facts do not always create a spirit of reality, because reality is a spirit."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on reality