Gilbert K. Chesterton famous quotes

To love means loving the unlovable. To forgive means pardoning the unpardonable. Faith means believing the unbelievable. Hope means hoping when everything seems hopeless.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Love #Inspirational #Success

It is customary to complain of the bustle and strenuousness of our epoch. But in truth the chief mark of our epoch is a profound laziness and fatigue; and the fact is that the real laziness is the cause of the apparent bustle.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Real #Profound #Laziness

Hope means hoping when everything seems hopeless.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Mean #Anticipation #Hopeless

The true object of all human life is play. Earth is a task garden; heaven is a playground.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Fun #Inspirational Life #Garden

We talk of wild animals but man is the only wild animal. It is man that has broken out. All other animals are tame animals; following the rugged respectability of the tribe or type.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Animal #Men #Broken

One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Nature #Adversity #Vision

You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Inspirational #Thanksgiving #Thankful

Soldiers have many faults, but they have one redeeming merit; they are never worshippers of force. Soldiers more than any other men are taught severely and systematically that might is not right. The fact is obvious. The might is in the hundred men who obey. The right (or what is held to be right) is in the one man who commands them.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Army #Men #Soldier

Are you a devil?" "I am a man," answered Father Brown gravely; "and therefore have all devils in my heart.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Father #Heart #Men

The materialist theory of history, that all politics and ethics are the expression of economics, is a very simple fallacy indeed. It consists simply of confusing the necessary conditions of life with the normal preoccupations of life, that are quite a different thing. It is like saying that because a man can only walk about on two legs, therefore he never walks about except to buy shoes and stockings.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Simple #Men #Expression

Dogma is actually the only thing that cannot be separated from education. It IS education. A teacher who is not dogmatic is simply a teacher who is not teaching. There are no uneducated people; only most people are educated wrong. The true task of culture today is not a task of expansion, but of selection-and-rejection. The educationist must find a creed and teach it.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Teacher #Educational #Teaching

I don't need a church to tell me I'm wrong where I already know I'm wrong; I need a Church to tell me I'm wrong where I think I'm right
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Thinking #Church #Needs

Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Wisdom #Fear #Religion

The traveler sees what he sees, the tourist sees what he has come to see.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Inspirational #Funny #Travel

It isn't that they can't see the solution. It is that they can't see the problem.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Funny #Statistics #Problem

Love means to love that which is unlovable; or it is no virtue at all.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Love #Mean #Humility

One may understand the cosmos, but never the ego; the self is more distant than any star.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Stars #Knowledge #Acceptance

Drink because you are happy, but never because you are miserable.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Drinking #Alcohol #Literature

How you think when you lose determines how long it will be until you win.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Encouragement #Clever #Failure

There are no uninteresting things, only uninterested people.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#I Hate You #Ignorance #People

If I can put one touch of rosy sunset into the life of any man or woman, I shall feel that I have worked with God.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Motivational #Sunset #Men

A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Hero #Book #Reading

The thing I hate about an argument is that it always interrupts a discussion.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Hate #Argument #I Hate

Daybreak is a never-ending glory; getting out of bed is a never ending nuisance.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Bed #Nuisance #Glory

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

#Respect #Wish #Thieves

Art consists of limitation. The most beautiful part of every picture is the frame.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Beauty #Beautiful #Art

A puritan is a person who pours righteous indignation into the wrong things.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Puritan #Righteous #Righteous Indignation

A teacher who is not dogmatic is simply a teacher who is not teaching.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Teacher #Retirement #Teaching

An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Inspirational #Funny #Travel

The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Mind #Literature #Mouths

Journalism is popular, but it is popular mainly as fiction. Life is one world, and life seen in the newspapers is another.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Fiction #Literature #World

There is a great deal of difference between an eager man who wants to read a book and the tired man who wants a book to read.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Inspirational #Education #Reading

You can never have a revolution in order to establish a democracy. You must have a democracy in order to have a revolution.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Freedom #Order #Historical

All architecture is great architecture after sunset; perhaps architecture is really a nocturnal art, like the art of fireworks.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Art #Sunset #Bad Ass

The paradox of courage is that a man must be a little careless of his life even in order to keep it.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Courage #Men #Order

We make our friends; we make our enemies; but God makes our next door neighbour.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Funny #Friendship #God

Let a man walk ten miles steadily on a hot summer's day along a dusty English road, and he will soon discover why beer was invented.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Summer #Beer #Men

It is as healthy to enjoy sentiment as to enjoy jam.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Healthy #Jam #Sentimental

There is a road from the eye to heart that does not go through the intellect.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Broken Heart #Cheating #Cancer

Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Inspirational #Reading #Book

The present condition of fame is merely fashion.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Fashion #Literature #Fame

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

#Funny #Money #Clever

Journalism largely consists of saying 'Lord Jones is Dead' to people who never knew that Lord Jones was alive.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Funny #Business #People

Music with dinner is an insult both to the cook and the violinist.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Music #Food #Literature

The man who throws a bomb is an artist, because he prefers a great moment to everything.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Artist #Men #Bombs

The vulgar man is always the most distinguished, for the very desire to be distinguished is vulgar.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Men #Class #Desire

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

#God #Wine #Mean

The greenhorn is the ultimate victor in everything; it is he that gets the most out of life.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Literature #Innocence #Ultimate

I was planning to go into architecture. But when I arrived, architecture was filled up. Acting was right next to it, so I signed up for acting instead.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Acting #Literature #Next

Once I planned to write a book of poems entirely about the things in my pocket. But I found it would be too long; and the age of the great epics is past.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Birthday #Book #Writing

Man does not live by soap alone; and hygiene, or even health, is not much good unless you can take a healthy view of it or, better still, feel a healthy indifference to it.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Health #Men #Hygiene

I believe in getting into hot water; it keeps you clean.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Funny #Believe #Evil

The most incredible thing about miracles is that they happen.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Miracle #Incredibles

Do not enjoy yourself. Enjoy dances and theaters and joy-rides and champagne and oysters; enjoy jazz and cocktails and night-clubs if you can enjoy nothing better; enjoy bigamy and burglary and any crime in the calendar, in preference to the other alternative; but never learn to enjoy yourself.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Night #Oysters #Joy

One of the great disadvantages of hurry is that it takes such a long time.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Life #Time #Hate

The real great man is the man who makes every man feel great.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Real #Greatness #Men

A man does not know what he is saying until he knows what he is not saying.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Knowledge #Men #Doe

There'd be a lot less scandal if people didn't idealize sin and pose as sinners.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#People #Scandal #Morality

You cannot love a thing without wanting to fight for it.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Fighting #Worth Fighting For

The average man votes below himself; he votes with half a mind or a hundredth part of one. A man ought to vote with the whole of himself, as he worships or gets married. A man ought to vote with his head and heart, his soul and stomach, his eye for faces and his ear for music; also (when sufficiently provoked) with his hands and feet. If he has ever seen a fine sunset, the crimson color of it should creep into his vote. The question is not so much whether only a minority of the electorate votes. The point is that only a minority of the voter votes.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Eye #Heart #Sunset

Most Americans are born drunk, and really require a little wine or beer to sober them. They have a sort of permanent intoxication from within, a sort of invisible champagne. Americans do not need to drink to inspire them to do anything, though they do sometimes, I think, need a little for the deeper and more delicate purpose of teaching them how to do nothing.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Teaching #Wine #Beer

Thanks are the highest form of thought.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Thanks #Form

A thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

The way to love anything is to realize that it may be lost.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Love #Inspirational #Friendship

A stiff apology is a second insult... The injured party does not want to be compensated because he has been wronged; he wants to be healed because he has been hurt.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Forgiveness #Hurt #Sorry

When we were children we were grateful to those who filled our stockings at Christmas time. Why are we not grateful to God for filling our stockings with legs?
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Christmas #Gratitude #Children

A woman uses her intelligence to find reasons to support her intuition.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Support #Intelligence #Intuition

I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Leadership #Teacher #Gratitude

When it comes to life the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Gratitude #Grateful #Live Life

Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Men #Tolerance #Virtue

Let your religion be less of a theory and more of a love affair.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Love #Faith #Inspiration

Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect and supreme experience if only one had a colored pencil long enough to draw on the ceiling.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Art #Lying #Perfect

The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Funny Inspirational #Food #Poetry

Marriage is an adventure, like going to war.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Cute #Marriage #Funny Love

Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Art #Funny Friend #Drawing

Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Inspirational #Inspiring #Graduation

I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Inspirational #Motivational #Success

The only way to be sure of catching a train is to miss the one before it.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Funny #Travel #Missing

Youth is the period in which a man can be hopeless. The end of every episode is the end of the world. But the power of hoping through everything, the knowledge that the soul survives its adventures, that great inspiration comes to the middle-aged.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Time #Inspiration #Live Life

There are no rules of architecture for a castle in the clouds.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Graduation #Hope #Carpe Diem

I've searched all the parks in all the cities and found no statues of committees.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Inspirational #Cities #Parks

The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes. Unless a particular man made New Year resolutions, he would make no resolutions. Unless a man starts afresh about things, he will certainly do nothing effective.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Inspirational #New Year #Eye

And when it rains on your parade, look up rather than down. Without the rain, there would be no rainbow.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Inspirational #Happiness #Rain

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

#Inspirational #Earth #Persons

It is always the secure who are humble.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Humble #Kids #Humility

Buddhism is not a creed, it is a doubt.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Buddhism #Doubt #Literature

Truths turn into dogmas the minute they are disputed.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Truth #Dogma #Minutes

If I did not believe in God, I should still want my doctor, my lawyer and my banker to do so.
-- Gilbert K. Chesterton

#Atheist #Believe #Doctors