G. K. Chesterton quotes - page 4

When people impute special vices to the Christian Church, they seem entirely to forget that the world (which is the only other thing there is) has these vices much more. The Church has been cruel; but the world has been much more cruel. The Church has plotted; but the world has plotted much more. The Church has been superstitious; but it has never been so superstitious as the world is when left to itself. (G. K. Chesterton)
He is only a very shallow critic who cannot see an eternal rebel in the heart of the Conservative. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
A mystic is a man who separates heaven and earth even if he enjoys them both. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
It is terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
Truth must of necessity be stranger than fiction ... for fiction is the creation of the human mind, and therefore is congenial to it. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
A fairly clear line separated advertisement from art. ... The first effect of the triumph of the capitalist (if we allow him to triumph) will be that that line of demarcation will entirely disappear. There will be no art that might not just as well be advertisement. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
There is something to be said for every error; but, whatever may be said for it, the most important thing to be said about it is that it is erroneous. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
Half the trouble about the modern man is that he is educated to understand foreign languages and misunderstand foreigners. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
Either criticism is no good at all (a very defensible position) or else criticism means saying about an author the very things that would have made him jump out of his boots. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
The academic mind reflects infinity, and is full of light by the simple process of being shallow and standing still. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
Dogma does not mean the absence of thought, but the end of thought. (G. K. Chesterton)
A change of opinions is almost unknown in an elderly military man. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
It is only great men who take up a great space by not being there. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
The full potentialities of human fury cannot be reached until a friend of both parties tactfully intervenes. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
For my part, I should be inclined to suggest that the chief object of education should be to restore simplicity. If you like to put it so, the chief object of education is not to learn things; nay, the chief object of education is to unlearn things. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
Plato was right, but not quite right. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
The riddles of God are more satisfying than the solutions of man. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
Every one of the great revolutionists, from Isaiah to Shelley, have been optimists. They have been indignant, not about the badness of existence, but about the slowness of men in realizing its goodness. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
I believe what really happens in history is this: the old man is always wrong; and the young people are always wrong about what is wrong with him. The practical form it takes is this: that, while the old man may stand by some stupid custom, the young man always attacks it with some theory that turns out to be equally stupid. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
What embitters the world is not excess of criticism, but absence of self-criticism. (G. K. Chesterton)
Impartiality is a pompous name for indifference, which is an elegant name for ignorance. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
All government is an ugly necessity. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
The modern world seems to have no notion of preserving different things side by side, of allowing its proper and proportionate place to each, of saving the whole varied heritage of culture. It has no notion except that of simplifying something by destroying nearly everything. View quote
G. K. Chesterton