G. K. Chesterton quotes - page 16

To have known the things that from the weak are furled, Perilous ancient passions, strange and high; It is something to be wiser than the world, It is something to be older than the sky. (G. K. Chesterton)
It is something to have wept as we have wept, It is something to have done as we have done, It is something to have watched when all men slept, And seen the stars which never see the sun. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
We must not hate humanity, or despise humanity, or refuse to help humanity; but we must not trust humanity; in the sense of trusting a trend in human nature which cannot turn back to bad things. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
Men that are men again: Who goes home? View quote
G. K. Chesterton
The indefinable is the indisputable. The man next door is indefinable, because he is too actual to be defined. And there are some to whom spiritual things have the same fierce and practical proximity; some to whom God is too actual to be defined. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
But I said that I opened my intellect as I opened my mouth, in order to shut it again on something solid. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
In our time the blasphemies are threadbare. Pessimism is now patently, as it always was essentially, more commonplace than piety. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
Fairy tales do not give the child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
There is truth in every ancient fable, and there is here even something of it in the fancy that finds the symbol of the Republic in the bird that bore the bolts of Jove. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
If you don't see the use of it, I certainly won't let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
Irreverence is a very servile parasite of reverence; and has starved with its starving lord. (G. K. Chesterton)
Anybody may propose to establish coercive Eugenics; or enforce psychoanalysis - that is, enforce confession without absolution. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
They then go and do something else. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
Much of our modern difficulty, in religion and other things, arises merely from this: that we confuse the word "indefinable" with the word "vague." View quote
G. K. Chesterton
A foreigner is a man who laughs at everything except jokes. He is perfectly entitled to laugh at anything, so long as he realises, in a reverent and religious spirit, that he himself is laughable. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
A despotism may almost be defined as a tired democracy. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
In a time of sceptic moths and cynic rusts, And fattened lives that of their sweetness tire In a world of flying loves and fading lusts, It is something to be sure of a desire. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
An open mind is really a mark of foolishness, like an open mouth. Mouths and minds were made to shut; they were made to open only in order to shut. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
A weak mind is like a microscope, which magnifies trifling things but cannot receive great ones. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
A man knocking on the door of a brothel is looking for God. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
I swear to you, then," said MacIan, after a pause. "I swear to you that nothing shall come between us. I swear to you that nothing shall be in my heart or in my head till our swords clash together. I swear it by the God you have denied, by the Blessed Lady you have blasphemed; I swear it by the seven swords in her heart. I swear it by the Holy Island where my fathers are, by the honour of my mother, by the secret of my people, and by the chalice of the Blood of God. (G. K. Chesterton)
I'm afraid I'm a practical man,' said the doctor with gruff humour, 'and I don't bother much about religion and philosophy. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
You have no business to be an unbeliever. You ought to stand for all the things these stupid people call superstitions. Come now, don't you think there's a lot in those old wives' tales about luck and charms and so on, silver bullets included? What do you say about them as a Catholic?' 'I say I'm an agnostic,' replied Father Brown, smiling. 'Nonsense,' said Aylmer impatiently. 'It's your business to believe things. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
...If ever I murdered somebody," he added quite simply, "I dare say it might be an Optimist." "Why?" cried Merton amused. "Do you think people dislike cheerfulness? View quote
G. K. Chesterton
When the business man rebukes the idealism of his office-boy, it is commonly in some such speech as this: "Ah, yes, when one is young, one has these ideals in the abstract and these castles in the air; but in middle age they all break up like clouds, and one comes down to a belief in practical politics, to using the machinery one has and getting on with the world as it is.”. View quote
G. K. Chesterton