G. K. Chesterton quotes - page 15

In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. (G. K. Chesterton)
It is so easy to be solemn; it is so hard to be frivolous. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
Whatever may be the reason, we all do warmly respect humility - in other people. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
It is incomprehensible to me that any thinker can calmly call himself a modernist; he might as well call himself a Thursdayite. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
For human beings, being children, have the childish wilfulness and the childish secrecy. And they never have from the beginning of the world done what the wise men have seen to be inevitable. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
We know each other, these slaves and we. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
The cause which is blocking all progress today is the subtle scepticism which whispers in a million ears that things are not good enough to be worth improving. If the world is good we are revolutionaries, if the world is evil we must be conservatives. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
The last hundred years has seen a general decline in the democratic idea. If there be anybody left to whom this historical truth appears a paradox, it is only because during that period nobody has been taught history, least of all the history of ideas. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
Some person had some reason for thinking it would be a good thing for somebody. And until we know what the reason was, we really cannot judge whether the reason was reasonable. It is extremely probable that we have overlooked some whole aspect of the question, if something set up by human beings like ourselves seems to be entirely meaningless and mysterious. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
There runs a strange law through the length of human history - that men are continually tending to undervalue their environment, to undervalue their happiness, to undervalue themselves. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
Atheism is, I suppose, the supreme example of a simple faith. (G. K. Chesterton)
I cannot understand the people who take literature seriously; but I can love them, and I do. Out of my love I warn them to keep clear of this book. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
Yet these shall perish and understand, For God has pity on this great land. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
I do not ask them to assume the worth of my creed or any creed; and I could wish they did not so often ask me to assume the worth of their worthless, poisonous plutocratic modern society. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
It searched for truth not by synthesis but by subdivision. It not only broke religion into small pieces, but it was bound to choose the smallest piece. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
We should probably come considerably nearer to the true conception of things if we treated all grown-up persons, of all titles and types, with precisely that dark affection and dazed respect with which we treat the infantile limitations. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
When they have no explanation to offer, they give short dignified replies, disdainful of the ignorance of the multitude. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
The most unfathomable schools and sages have never attained to the gravity which dwells in the eyes of a baby of three months old. It is the gravity of astonishment at the universe, and astonishment at the universe is not mysticism, but a transcendent common-sense. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
Men can enjoy life under considerable limitations, if they can be sure of their limited enjoyments; but under Progressive Puritanism we can never be sure of anything. The curse of it is not limitation; it is unlimited limitation. The evil is not in the restriction; but in the fact that nothing can ever restrict the restriction. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
I can conceive no more tremendous tribute than this, to any faith, which made a flaming affirmation from the darkest beginnings, of what the latest enlightenment can only slowly discover in the end. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
They seem to forget that if the Crusaders nearly conquered Palestine, it was but a return upon the Moslems who had nearly conquered Europe. (G. K. Chesterton)
It is all as of old, the empty clangour, The NOTHING scrawled on a five-foot page, The huckster who, mocking holy anger, Painfully paints his face with rage. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
And a voice valedictory: Who is for victory? View quote
G. K. Chesterton
Let the thunder break on man and beast and bird And the lightning. It is something to have been. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
The mind moves by instincts, associations and premonitions and not by fixed dates or completed processes. Action and reaction will occur simultaneously: or the cause actually be found after the effect. View quote
G. K. Chesterton