Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes

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Gilbert K. Chesterton

Profession : Writer

Birth : May 29, 1874

Journalism is popular, but it is popular mainly as fiction. Life is one world, and life seen in the newspapers is another.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Ritual will always mean throwing away something: destroying our corn or wine upon the altar of our gods.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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

All slang is metaphor, and all metaphor is poetry.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Drink because you are happy, but never because you are miserable.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

The fatal metaphor of progress, which means leaving things behind us, has utterly obscured the real idea of growth, which means leaving things inside us.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

All conservatism is based upon the idea that if you leave things alone you leave them as they are. But you do not. If you leave a thing alone you leave it to a torrent of change.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes. Unless a particular man made New Year resolutions, he would make no resolutions. Unless a man starts afresh about things, he will certainly do nothing effective.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Man is an exception, whatever else he is. If he is not the image of God, then he is a disease of the dust. If it is not true that a divine being fell, then we can only say that one of the animals went entirely off its head.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

All architecture is great architecture after sunset; perhaps architecture is really a nocturnal art, like the art of fireworks.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Men feel that cruelty to the poor is a kind of cruelty to animals. They never feel that it is an injustice to equals; nay it is treachery to comrades.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

A puritan is a person who pours righteous indignation into the wrong things.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Science in the modern world has many uses; its chief use, however, is to provide long words to cover the errors of the rich.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Being 'contented' ought to mean in English, as it does in French, being pleased. Being content with an attic ought not to mean being unable to move from it and resigned to living in it; it ought to mean appreciating all there is in such a position.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

The present condition of fame is merely fashion.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

We are justified in enforcing good morals, for they belong to all mankind; but we are not justified in enforcing good manners, for good manners always mean our own manners.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Compromise used to mean that half a loaf was better than no bread. Among modern statesmen it really seems to mean that half a loaf; is better than a whole loaf.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Large organization is loose organization. Nay, it would be almost as true to say that organization is always disorganization.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

A businessman is the only man who is forever apologizing for his occupation.

Gilbert K. Chesterton