G. K. Chesterton Quotes

English author and Christian apologist (1874–1936)

Add quote

Gilbert Keith Chesterton (29 May 1874 – 14 June 1936) was a British writer whose prolific and diverse output included works of philosophy, ontology, poetry, play writing, journalism, public lecturing and debating, literary and art criticism, biography, Christian apologetics (particularly for Catholicism), and fiction, including fantasy and detective fiction. He has been called the "prince of paradox".

From: Wikiquote (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Native Name: Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Alternative Names: František Kafka • Kafka • Gilbert K. Chesterton • Gilbert Chesterton • G.K. Chesterton • G. K. C.

From Wikidata (CC0)

Imagination does not breed insanity. Exactly what does breed insanity is reason. Poets do not go mad; but chess-players do. Mathematicians go mad, and cashiers; but creative artists very seldom. I am not, as will be seen, in any sense attacking logic: I only say that this danger does lie in logic, not in imagination.

In truth, there are only two kinds of people; those who accept dogma and know it, and those who accept dogma and don't know it.

Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another.

Science must not impose any philosophy, any more than the telephone must tell us what to say.

If I can put one touch of rosy sunset into the life of any man or woman, I shall feel that I have worked with God.

What is the good of words if they aren't important enough to quarrel over? Why do we choose one word more than another if there isn't any difference between them? If you called a woman a chimpanzee instead of an angel, wouldn't there be a quarrel about a word? If you're not going to argue about words, what are you going to argue about? Are you going to convey your meaning to me by moving your ears? The Church and the heresies always used to fight about words, because they are the only thing worth fighting about.

The Catholic Church is like a thick steak, a glass of red wine, and a good cigar.

And when it rains on your parade, look up rather than look down. Without the rain, there would be no rainbow.

Pessimism is not in being tired of evil but in being tired of good. Despair does not lie in being weary of suffering, but in being weary of joy. It is when for some reason or other the good things in a society no longer work that the society
begins to decline; when its food does not feed, when its cures do not cure, when its blessings refuse to bless. We might almost say that in a society without such good things we should hardly have any test by which to register a decline; that is why some of the static commercial oligarchies like Carthage have rather an air in history of standing and staring like mummies, so dried up and swathed and embalmed that no man knows when they are new or old.

Don't ever take a fence down until you know the reason it was put up.

Here dies another day
During which I have had eyes, ears, hands
And the great world round me;
And with tomorrow begins another.
Why am I allowed two?

Never invoke the gods unless you really want them to appear. It annoys them very much.

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

How can it be a large career to tell other people's children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one's own children about the universe?
How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No. A woman's function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute. I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness.

If you'd take your head home and boil it for a turnip it might be useful. I can't say. But it might.