Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes - Page 42

• The old religionist cried out for his god. The new religionist cries out for some god to be his.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Spirituality, Cry, Cried

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• The doctrine of human equality reposes on this: that there is no man really clever who has not found that he is stupid.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Clever, Stupid, Men

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• Playing as children means playing is the most serious thing in the world.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Baby, Children, Mean

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• Where does a wise man kick a pebble? On the beach. Where does a wise man hide a leaf? In the forest.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Wise, Beach, Ocean

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• Most Americans are born drunk, and really require a little wine or beer to sober them.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Wine, Beer, Drunk

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• Do not, I beseech you be troubled by the increase of forces already in dissolution. You have mistake the hour of the night: it is already morning.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Morning, Pain, Mistake

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• The past is democratic, because it is a people. The future is despotic, because it is a caprice. Every man is alone in his prediction, just as each man is alone in a dream.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Dream, Men, Past

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• The Museum is not meant either for the wanderer to see by accident or for the pilgrim to see with awe. It is meant for the mere slave of a routine of self- education to stuff himself with every sort of incongruous intellectual food in one indigestible meal.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Museums, Self, Intellectual

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• The miser is the man who starves himself and everybody else, in order to worship wealth in its dead form, as distinct from its living form.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Men, Order, Greed

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2012). “The Collected Works of G.K. Chesterton”, p.112, Ignatius Press

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• [There is] one distinctly human thing - the story. There can be as good science about a turnip as about a man. ... [Or philosophy, or theology] ...There can be, without any question at all, as good higher mathematics about a turnip as about a man. But I do not think, though I speak in a manner somewhat tentative, that there could be as good a novel written about a turnip as a man.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Philosophy, Science, Men

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• Men can construct a science with very few instruments, or with very plain instruments; but no one on earth could construct a science with unreliable instruments. A man might work out the whole of mathematics with a handful of pebbles, but not with a handful of clay which was always falling apart into new fragments, and falling together into new combinations. A man might measure heaven and earth with a reed, but not with a growing reed.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Fall, Men, Work Out

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.180, Simon and Schuster

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• 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.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Mistake, Errors, Important

  "The Illustrated London News" Magazine, April 25, 1931.

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• ...it is not necessary to the child to awaken to the sense of the strange and humorous by giving a man a luminous nose...to the child it is sufficiently strange and humorous to have a nose at all.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Children, Humorous, Men

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• We must be clear about what we want to paint. This adds a further principle to our previous list of principles. We have said we must be fond of this world, even in order to change it.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Order, Society, World

  "The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton".

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• You could compile the worst book in the world entirely out of selected passages from the best writers in the world.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Book, Writing, World

  "Dictionary of Quotations in Communications" by Lilless McPherson Shilling, p. xvi, 1997.

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• The idea of private property universal but private, the idea of families free but still families, of domesticity democratic but still domestic, of one man one house - this remains the real vision and magnet of mankind. The world may accept something more official and general, less human and intimate. But the world will be like a broken-hearted woman who makes a humdrum marriage because she may not make a happy one; Socialism may be the world's deliverance, but it is not the world's desire.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Faith, Real, Inspiration

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.280, Simon and Schuster

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• If we could destroy custom at a blow and see the stars as a child sees them, we should need no other apocalypse.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Inspirational, Nature, Stars

  "The Defendant". Book by Gilbert K. Chesterton, 1901.

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• It is much easier to write a good Times leading article than a good joke in Punch.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Writing, Good Times, Easier

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.91, Simon and Schuster

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• Whether a man chooses to tell the truth in long sentences or short jokes is a problem analogous to whether he chooses to tell the truth in French or in German.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Men, Long, Problem

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (1909). “Heretics”

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• Every man is important if he loses his life;and every man is funny if he loses his hat and has to run after it.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Running, Men, Important

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• The full value of this life can only be got by fighting; the violent take it by storm. And if we have accepted everything we have missed something - war. This life of ours is a very enjoyable fight, but a very miserable truce.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  War, Fighting, Storm

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• Half a truth is better than no politics.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Half, Politics, Truth Is

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• People in high life are hardened to the wants and distresses of mankind as surgeons are to their bodily pains.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Pain, People, Want

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• A cosmic philosophy is not constructed to fit a man; a cosmic philosophy is constructed to fit a cosmos. A man can no more possess a private religion than he can possess a private sun and moon.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Philosophy, Moon, Men

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• The modern world is filled with men who hold dogmas so strongly that they do not even know they are dogmas.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Believe, Men, World

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.244, Simon and Schuster

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