Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes - Page 39

• Why are we not grateful to God for filling our stockings with legs?

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Christmas, Grateful, Thank You God

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• The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Love, Funny, Life

  "The Illustrated London News" Magazine, July 16, 1910.

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• The family is the test of freedom; because the family is the only thing that the free man makes for himself and by himself.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Family, Freedom, Men

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• There is nothing the matter with Americans except their ideals. The real American is all right; it is the ideal American who is all wrong.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Funny, Real, Humorous

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• No man who worships education has got the best out of education... Without a gentle contempt for education no man's education is complete.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Education, Teaching, Men

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• It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Religion, Tests, Childlike Faith

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

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• I regard golf as an expensive way of playing marbles.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Sports, Golf, Guitar

  Quoted in Colin Jarman The Guinness Dictionary of Sports Quotations (1990).

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• A new philosophy generally means in practice the praise of some old vice.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Philosophy, Mean, Practice

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• A yawn is a silent shout.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Yawning, Boredom, Silence

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• Fable is more historical than fact, because fact tells us about one man and fable tells us about a million men.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Men, Historical, Literature

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• It has been often said, very truly, that religion is the thing that makes the ordinary man feel extraordinary; it is an equally important truth that religion is the thing that makes the extraordinary man feel ordinary.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Men, Important, Ordinary

  Charles Dickens: The Last of the Great Men ch. 1 (1906)

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• They said that I should lose my ideals and begin to believe in the methods of practical politicians. Now, I have not lost my ideals in the least; my faith in fundamentals is exactly what it always was. What I have lost is my childlike faith in practical politics.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Believe, Fundamentals, Politician

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.32, Simon and Schuster

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• Customs are generally unselfish. Habits are nearly always selfish.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Selfish, Habit, Unselfish

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• There nearly always is a method in madness.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Madness, Method

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.77, Simon and Schuster

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• In the fairy tale, an incomprehensible happiness rests upon an incomprehensible condition. A box is opened and all evils fly out. A word is forgotten and cities perish. A lamp is lit and love flies away. An apple is eaten and the hope of God is gone.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Apples, Cities, Evil

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.40, Simon and Schuster

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• But I was frightfully fond of the universe and wanted to address it by a diminutive. I often did so; and it never seemed to mind.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Mind, Addresses, Wanted

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.46, Simon and Schuster

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• Only poor men get hanged.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Men, Poor, Poor Man

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• The ignorant pronounce it Frood To cavil or applaud The well-informed pronounce it Froyd But I pronounce it Fraud.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Ignorant, Fraud, Wells

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• The act of defending any of the cardinal virtues has today all the exhilaration of a vice.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Vices, Today, Exhilaration

  The Defendant "A Defence of Humility" (1901)

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• Free verse'? You may as well call sleeping in a ditch 'free architecture'.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Sleep, May, Architecture

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• And my haunting instinct that somehow good was not merely a tool to be used, but a relic to be guarded, like the goods from Crusoe's ship--even that had been the wild whisper of something originally wise, for, according to Christianity, we were indeed the survivors of a wreck, the crew of a golden ship that had gone down before the beginning of the world.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Wise, Survivor, Tools

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.59, Simon and Schuster

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• In anything that does cover the whole of your life - in your philosophy and your religion - you must have mirth. If you do not have mirth you will certainly have madness.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Philosophy, Doe, Mirth

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• There is a law written in the darkest of the Books of Life, and it is this: If you look at a thing nine hundred and ninety-nine times, you are perfectly safe; if you look at it the thousandth time, you are in frightful danger of seeing it for the first time.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Book, Ninety Nine, Law

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• We are passing into a social phase in which unless a heroic effort is made for human dignity and freedom, gold will be the sole method of government and therefore the sole standard of manners.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Government, Effort, Gold

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• What is the good of words if they aren't important enough to quarrel over? Why do we choose one word more than another if there isn't any difference between them? If you called a woman a chimpanzee instead of an angel, wouldn't there be a quarrel about a word? If you're not going to argue about words, what are you going to argue about? Are you going to convey your meaning to me by moving your ears? The Church and the heresies always used to fight about words, because they are the only thing worth fighting about.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Moving, Angel, Fighting

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