Quotes by Gilbert K. Chesterton

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Buddhism is not a creed, it is a doubt.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Compromise used to mean that half a loaf was better than no bread. Among modern statesmen it really seems to mean that half a loaf; is better than a whole loaf.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

And they that rule in England, in stately conclaves met, alas, alas for England they have no graves as yet.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

A radical generally meant a man who thought he could somehow pull up the root without affecting the flower. A conservative generally meant a man who wanted to conserve everything except his own reason for conserving anything.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Ritual will always mean throwing away something: destroying our corn or wine upon the altar of our gods.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

A man does not know what he is saying until he knows what he is not saying.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

There is no such thing on earth as an uninteresting subject; the only thing that can exist is an uninterested person.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

The vulgar man is always the most distinguished, for the very desire to be distinguished is vulgar.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

The mere brute pleasure of reading the sort of pleasure a cow must have in grazing.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Chastity does not mean abstention from sexual wrong; it means something flaming, like Joan of Arc.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

The ordinary scientific man is strictly a sentimentalist. He is a sentimentalist in this essential sense, that he is soaked and swept away by mere associations.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Democracy means government by the uneducated, while aristocracy means government by the badly educated.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

The traveler sees what he sees, the tourist sees what he has come to see.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one's own country as a foreign land.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

To be clever enough to get all that money, one must be stupid enough to want it.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

True contentment is a thing as active as agriculture. It is the power of getting out of any situation all that there is in it. It is arduous and it is rare.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

All slang is metaphor, and all metaphor is poetry.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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

Gilbert K. Chesterton