G.K. Chesterton Quotes

Of being strong and brave. The strong can not be brave. Only the weak can be brave; and yet again, in practice, only those who can be brave can be trusted, in time of doubt, to be strong.

Far be it from a poor friar to deny that you have these dazzling diamonds in your head, all designed in the most perfect mathematical shapes and shining with a purely celestial light; all there, almos...

The world will never starve for want of wonders; but only for want of wonder.

We are learning to do a great many clever things…The next great task will be to learn not to do them.

It does not, in the conventional phrase, accept the conclusions of science, for the simple reason that science has not concluded. To conclude is to shut up; and the man of science is not at all likely...

Only a man who knows nothing of motors talks of motoring without petrol; only a man who knows nothing of reason talks of reasoning without strong, undisputed first principles.

I will not call it my philosophy; for I did not make it. God and humanity made it; and it made me.

In the lower classes the school master does not work for the parent, but against the parent. Modern education meanshanding down the customs of the minority, and rooting out the customs of the majority...

All the great groups that stood about the Cross represent in one way or another the great historical truth of the time; that the world could not save itself. Man could do no more. Rome and Jerusalem a...

How can it be a large career to tell other people's children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one's own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to ever...

Nonsense!' said Gregory, who was very rational when anyone else attempted paradox.

Life was a fly that faded, and death a drone that stung;The world was very old indeed when you and I were young.

At the back of our brains, so to speak, there was a forgotten blaze or burst of astonishment at our own existence. The object of the artistic and spiritual life was to dig for this submerged sunrise o...

Then, what, asked Turnbull, very slowly, as he softly picked a flower, what is the difference between Christ and Satan?It is quite simple, replied the Highlander. Christ descended into hell; Satan fel...

The truth is people who worship health cannot remain healthy on the point.

We’re all really dependent in nearly everything, and we all make a fuss about being independent in something.

But it is clear that no political activity can be encouraged by saying that progress is natural and inevitable; that is not a reason for being active, but rather a reason for being lazy.

The truth is that the old parliamentary oligarchy[Pg 227] abandoned their first line of trenches because they had by that time constructed a second line of defence. It consisted in the concentration o...

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.

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 wal...