Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes - Page 45

• The mind that finds its way to wild places is the poet's; but the mind that never finds its way back is the lunatic's.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Wild Places, Mind, Way

  "What's Wrong with the World". Book by G. K. Chesterton, Part Three: Feminism, or The Mistake About Woman, Ch. 3: The Emancipation of Domesticity, 1910.

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• The outer ring of Christianity is a rigid guard of ethical abnegations and professional priests; but inside that inhuman guard you will find the old human life dancing like children and drinking wine like men; for Christianity is the only frame for pagan freedom. But in the modern philosophy the case is opposite; it is its outer ring that is obviously artistic and emancipated; its despair is within.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Children, Philosophy, Drinking

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.119, Simon and Schuster

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• The Christian is quite free to believe that there is a considerable amount of settled order and inevitable development in the universe. But the materialist is not allowed to admit into his spotless machine the slightest speck of spiritualism or miracle.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Christian, Believe, Order

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.16, Simon and Schuster

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• And we were angry and poor and happy, And proud of seeing our names in print.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Names, Proud, Poor

  'A Song of Defeat' (1915)

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• The objection to fairy stories is that they tell children there are dragons. But children have always known there are dragons. Fairy stories tell children that dragons can be killed.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Children, Dragons, Fairy Stories

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• The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Men, Orthodoxy, Lost Everything

  1908 Orthodoxy, ch.2.

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• The word good has many meanings.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Grandmother, Yards, Grand Mother

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• Leaving the complications of the human breakfast-table out of account, in an elemental sense, the egg only exists to produce the chicken. But the chicken does not exist only in order to produce another egg. He may also exist to amuse himself, to praise God, and even to suggest ideas to a French dramatist. Being a conscious life, he is, or may be, valuable in himself.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Animal, Order, Eggs

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.252, Simon and Schuster

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• We talk of wild animals, but the wildest animal is man.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Animal, Men, Wild Animal

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• For they (capitalists) hold as their chief heresy, in a coarser form, the fundamental falsehood that things are not made to be used but made to be sold. All the collapse of their commercial system in their own time has been due to that fallacy of forcing things on a market where there was no market; of continually increasing the power of supply without increasing the power of demand; of briefly, of always considering the man who sells the potato and never considering the man who eats it.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Men, Demand, Potatoes

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• Every act of will is an act of self-limitation. To desire action is to desire limitation. In that sense, every act is an act of self-sacrifice. When you choose anything, you reject everything else.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Sacrifice, Self, Desire

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.28, Simon and Schuster

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• Bigotry may be roughly defined as the anger of men who have no opinions.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Anger, Men, May

  'Heretics' (1905) ch. 20

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• Mankind is not a tribe of animals to which we owe compassion. Mankind is a club to which we owe our subscription.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Animal, Compassion, Clubs

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• An artist will betray himself by some sort of sincerity.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Betrayal, Artist, Sincerity

  "The Dagger with Wings". Book by Gilbert K. Chesterton, 1926.

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• The true object of human life is play.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Play, Life Is, Human Life

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• It is very good for a man to talk about what he does not understand; as long as he understands that he does not understand it.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Men, Long, Doe

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• A man cannot have the energy to produce good art without having the energy to wish to pass beyond it.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Art, Men, Wish

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (1909). “Heretics”

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• The diseased pride [of artistic individualists] was not even conscious of a public interest, and would have found all political terms utterly tasteless and insignificant. It was no longer a question of one man one vote, but of one man one universe.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Pride, Men, Political

  George Bernard Shaw "The Progressive" (1910)

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• Romance is the combination of something that is strange with something that is secure.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Romance, Insecurity, Strange

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.6, Simon and Schuster

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• If I think the universe is triangular, and you think it is square, there cannot be room for two universes. We may argue politely, we may argue humanely, we may argue with great mutual benefit: but, obviously, we must argue.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Thinking, Squares, Mutual Benefit

  Illustrated London News, 10 Oct. 1908

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• They have invented a phrase, a phrase that is a black and white contradiction in two words - 'free-love' - as if a lover ever had been, or ever could be, free.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Black And White, Two, Phrases

  The Defendant "A Defence of Rash Vows" (1902)

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• A man can never quite understand a boy, even when he has been a boy.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Boys, Men, Never Quit

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• ...But nature does not say that cats are more valuable than mice; nature makes no remark on the subject. She does not even say that the cat is enviable or the mouse pitiable. We think the cat superior because we have (or most of us have) a particular philosophy to the effect that life is better than death. But if the mouse were a German pessimist mouse, he might not think that the cat had beaten him at all. He might think he had beaten the cat by getting to the grave first.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Philosophy, Cat, Thinking

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

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• Nine out of ten of what we call new ideas are simply old mistakes.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Mistake, Ideas, Nine

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• Adventure is the champagne of life, but I prefer my champagne and my adventures dry.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Adventure, Dry, Champagne

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