Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes

What affects men sharply about a foreign nation is not so much finding or not finding familiar things; it is rather not finding them in the familiar place.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Men Quotes , Familiar Quotes

I despise Birth-Control first because it is ... an entirely meaningless word; and is used so as to curry favour even with those who would first recoil from its real meaning. The proceeding these quack doctors recommend does not control any birth.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Real Quotes , Science Quotes

The fact is that purification and austerity are even more necessary for the appreciation of life and laughter than for anything else. To let no bird fly past unnoticed, to spell the stones and weeds, to have the mind a storehouse of sunset, requires a discipline in pleasure and an education in gratitude.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Weed Quotes , Gratitude Quotes

No man must be superior to the things that are common to men.... Not only are we all in the same boat, but we are all seasick.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Men Quotes , Common Quotes

Only men to whom the family is sacred will ever have a standard or a status by which to criticize the State. They alone can appeal to something more holy than the gods of the city.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Family Quotes , Men Quotes

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

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Pain Quotes , People Quotes

From the standpoint of any sane person, the present problem of capitalist concentration is not only a question of law, but of criminal law, not to mention criminal lunacy.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Law Quotes , Criminals Quotes

We do not need to get good laws to restrain bad people. We need to get good people to restrain us from bad laws.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Law Quotes , People Quotes

Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Funny Quotes , Respect Quotes

Dogma does not mean the absence of thought, but the end of thought.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Mean Quotes , Doe Quotes

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.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Men Quotes , Long Quotes

The Declaration of Independence dogmatically bases all rights on the fact that God created all men equal; and it is right; for if they were not created equal, they were certainly evolved unequal. There is no basis for democracy except in a dogma about the divine origin of man.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Men Quotes , Rights Quotes

The Sentimentalist, roughly speaking, is the man who wants to eat his cake and have it. He has no sense of honor about ideas; he will not see that one must pay for an idea as well as for anything else. He will have them all at once in one wild intellectual harem, no matter how much they quarrel and contradict each other.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Men Quotes , Cake Quotes

The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Political Quotes , Politics Quotes

We have passed the age of the demagogue, the man who has little to say and says it loud. We have come to the age of the mystagogue or don, the man who has nothing to say, but says it softly and impressively in an indistinct whisper.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Men Quotes , Age Quotes

Tradition does not mean a dead town; it does not mean that the living are dead but that the dead are alive. It means that it still matters what Penn did two hundred years ago or what Franklin did a hundred years ago; I never could feel in New York that it mattered what anybody did an hour ago.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , New York Quotes , Mean Quotes

If I did not believe in God, I should still want my doctor, my lawyer and my banker to do so.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Atheist Quotes , Believe Quotes

There'd be a lot less scandal if people didn't idealize sin and pose as sinners.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , People Quotes , Scandal Quotes

The hands that had made the sun and stars were too small to reach the huge heads of the cattle. Upon this paradox, we might almost say upon this jest, all the literature of our faith is founded.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Stars Quotes , Hands Quotes

Daybreak is a never-ending glory; getting out of bed is a never ending nuisance.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Bed Quotes , Dawn Quotes