Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes - Page 27

• The original quality in any man of imagination is imagery.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Men, Imagination, Quality

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• To be simple is the best thing in the world; to be modest is the next best thing. I am not sure about being quiet.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Simple, Simplicity, World

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• Nine times out of ten it is the coarse word that condemns an evil, and the refined word that excuses it.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Evil, Nine, Excuse

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• A good civilisation spreads over us freely like a tree, varying and yielding because it is alive. A bad civilisation stands up and sticks out above us like an umbrella-artificial, mathematical in shape; not merely universal, but uniform.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Civilization, Tree, Alive

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• Poets do not go mad, but chess players do.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Player, Mad, Chess

  Orthodoxy ch. 2 (1908)

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• It is not only possible to say a great deal in praise of play; it is really possible to say the highest things in praise of it. It might reasonably be maintained that the true object of all human life is play. Earth is a task garden; heaven is a playground.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Garden, Play, Heaven

  "All Things Considered". Book by Gilbert K. Chesterton, 1908.

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• Facts by themselves can often feed the flame of madness, because sanity is a spirit.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Flames, Facts, Spirit

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• The academic mind reflects infinity, and is full of light by the simple process of being shallow and standing still.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Simple, Light, Mind

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.354, Simon and Schuster

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• Thrift is the really romantic thing; economy is more romantic than extravagance... thrift is poetic because it is creative; waste is unpoetic because it is waste... if a man could undertake to make use of all the things in his dustbin, he would be a broader genius than Shakespeare.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Men, Creative, Extravagance

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• One pleasure attached to growing older is that many things seem to be growing younger; growing fresher and more lively than we once supposed them to be.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Growing, Aging, Pleasure

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• The truth is that there are no things for which men will make such herculean efforts as the things of which they know they are unworthy.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Men, Effort, Truth Is

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.149, Simon and Schuster

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• Ingratitude is surely the chief of the intellectual sins of man. He takes his political benefits for granted, just as he takes the skies and the seasons for granted.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Men, Sky, Political

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• All men thirst to confess their crimes more than tired beasts thirst for water; but they naturally object to confessing them while other people, who have also committed the same crimes, sit by and laugh at them.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Tired, Men, Water

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• We are like the penny, because we have the image of the king stamped on us, the divine king.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Kings, Pennies, Divine

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• The present condition of fame is merely fashion.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Fashion, Literature, Fame

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• The Church is a house with a hundred gates: and no two men enter at exactly the same angle

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Men, Two, House

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• A businessman is the only man who is forever apologizing for his occupation.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Sorry, Apology, Men

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• Only man can be absurd: for only man can be dignified.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Men, Absurd, Absurdity

  "All Things Considered". Book by Gilbert K. Chesterton, 1908.

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• . . . For friendship implies individuality; whereas comradeship really implies the temporary subordination, if not the temporary swamping of individuality. Friends are the better for being two; but comrades are the better for being two million.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Friendship, Two, Individuality

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• 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

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• There is not really any courage at all in attacking hoary or antiquated things, any more than in offering to fight one's grandmother. The really courageous man is he who defies tyrannies young as the morning and superstitions fresh as the first flowers. The only true free-thinker is he whose intellect is as much free from the future as from the past.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Courage, Morning, Flower

  "What's Wrong With the World". Book by G. K. Chesterton, 1910.

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• 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, Views

  "All I Survey". Book by G. K. Chesterton, www.theguardian.com. 1933.

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• 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

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• I like the Cyclostyle ink; it is so inky. I do not think there is anyone who takes quite such a fierce pleasure in things being themselves as I do. The startling wetness of water excites and intoxicates me: the fieriness of fire, the steeliness of steel, the unutterable muddiness of mud. It is just the same with people.... When we call a man "manly" or a woman "womanly" we touch the deepest philosophy.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Philosophy, Men, Thinking

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• Among the rich you will never find a really generous man even by accident. They may give their money away, but they will never give themselves away; they are egotistic, secretive, dry as old bones. To be smart enough to get all that money you must be dull enough to want it.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Smart, Men, Generous Man

  A Miscellany of Men "The Miser and His Friends" (1912)

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