Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes - Page 50

• Aesthetes never do anything but what they are told.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Timeless

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• Men invent new ideals because they dare not attempt old ideals. They look forward with enthusiasm, because they are afraid to look back.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Men, Progress, Looks

  "What's Wrong with the World" by G. K. Chesterton, (Part One: The Homelessness Of Man, Ch. 4), 1910.

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• I still hold. . .that the suburbs ought to be either glorified by romance and religion or else destroyed by fire from heaven, or even by firebrands from the earth.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Fire, Romance, Heaven

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• To hurry through one's leisure is the most unbusiness-like of actions.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Progress, Leisure, Action

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• War is not the best way of settling differences; it is the only way of preventing their being settled for you.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  War, Differences, Way

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• For fear of the newspapers politicians are dull, and at last they are too dull even for the newspapers.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Dull, Lasts, Politician

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

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• It is hard to make government representative when it is also remote.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Government, Hard, Representatives

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• With all that we hear of American hustle and hurry, it is rather strange that Americans seem to like to linger on longer words.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Hustle, Culture, Strange

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• A man imagines a happy marriage as a marriage of love; even if he makes fun of marriages that are without love, or feels sorry for lovers who are without marriage.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Love, Fun, Sorry

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• Puritanism was an honourable mood; it was a noble fad. In other words, it was a highly creditable mistake.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Mistake, Fads, Noble

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• What life and death may be to a turkey is not my business; but the soul of Scrooge and the body of Cratchit are my business.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Christmas, Business, Turkeys

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• The more we are proud that the Bethlehem story is plain enough to be understood by the shepherds, and almost by the sheep, the more do we let ourselves go, in dark and gorgeous imaginative frescoes or pageants about the mystery and majesty of the Three Magian Kings.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Christmas, Kings, Dark

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• It's not that we don't have enough scoundrels to curse; it's that we don't have enough good men to curse them.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Men, Catholic, Good Man

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• The whole truth is generally the ally of virtue; a half-truth is always the ally of some vice.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Catholic, Half, Vices

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• Truth is sacred; and if you tell the truth too often nobody will believe it.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Believe, Sacred, Morality

  In the Illustrated London News, 24 February 1906.

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• I say that a man must be certain of his morality for the simple reason that he has to suffer for it.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Simple, Men, Suffering

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• To the humble man, and to the humble man alone, the sun is really a sun; to the humble man, and to the humble man alone, the sea is really a sea.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Humble, Men, Sea

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.188, Simon and Schuster

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• If we want to give poor people soap we must set out deliberately to give them luxuries. If we will not make them rich enough to be clean, then empathically we must do what we did with the saints. We must reverence them for being dirty.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Dirty, Luxury, People

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• What we call emancipation is always and of necessity simply the free choice of the soul between one set of limitations and another.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Choices, Soul, Morality

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• The cause which is blocking all progress today is the subtle scepticism which whispers in a million ears that things are not good enough to be worth improving. If the world is good we are revolutionaries, if the world is evil we must be conservatives. These essays, futile as they are considered as serious literature, are yet ethically sincere, since they seek to remind men that things must be loved first and improved afterwards.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Block, Men, Evil

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

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• The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children's games from the beginning, and will probably do it till the end, which is a nuisance for the few people who grow up.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Inspirational, Children, Growing Up

  'The Napoleon of Notting Hill' (1904) bk. 1, ch. 1

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• To say that a man is an idealist is merely to say that he is a man.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Life, Men, Idealist

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.221, Simon and Schuster

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• All the controversialists who have become conscious of the real issue are already saying of our ideal exactly what used to be said of the Socialists' ideal. They are saying that private property is too ideal not to be impossible. They are saying that private enterprise is too good to be true. They are saying that the idea of ordinary men owning ordinary possessions is against the laws of political economy and requires an alteration in human nature.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Real, Men, Law

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• The word 'heresy' not only means no longer being wrong; it practically means being clear-headed and courageous. The word 'orthodoxy' not only no longer means being right; it practically
  means being wrong

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Mean, Orthodoxy, Courageous

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.125, Simon and Schuster

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• There is a certain poetic value, and that a genuine one, in this sense of having missed the full meaning of things. There is beauty, not only in wisdom, but in this dazed and dramatic ignorance.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Ignorance, Poetic, Dramatic

  "Robert Browning". Book by Gilbert K. Chesterton, 1903.

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