G. K. Chesterton Quotes

In the struggle for existence, it is only on those who hang on for ten minutes after all is hopeless, that hope begins to dawn.

A man is angry at a libel because it is false, but at a satire because it is true.

I have little doubt that when St. George had killed the dragon he was heartily afraid of the princess.

How much larger your life would be if your self could become smaller in it; if you could really look at other men with common curiosity and pleasure; if you could see them walking as they are in their sunny sefishness and their virile indifference! You would begin to be interested in them, because they are not interested in you. You would break out of this tiny and tawdry theatre in which your own little plot is always played, and you would find yourself under a freer sky, in a street full of splendid strangers.

It is easy to be heavy; hard to be light.

Monotony has nothing to do with a place; monotony, either in its sensation or its infliction, is simply the quality of a person. There are no dreary sights; there are only dreary sight seers.

Coincidences are spiritual puns.

Great truths can only be forgotten and can never be falsified.

Progress should mean that we are always changing the world to fit the vision, instead we are always changing the vision.

Art is limitation; the essence of every picture is the frame. If you draw a giraffe, you must draw him with a long neck. If in your bold creative way you hold yourself free to draw a giraffe with a short neck, you will really find that you are not free to draw a giraffe.

The function of the imagination is not to make strange things settled, so much as to make settled things strange.

Ten thousand women marched through the streets shouting, 'We will not be dictated to,' and went off and became stenographers.

That Jones shall worship the god within him turns out ultimately to mean that Jones shall worship Jones. Let Jones worship the sun or moon, anything rather than the Inner Light; let Jones worship cats or crocodiles, if he can find any in his street, but not the god within. Christianity came into the world firstly in order to assert with violence that a man had not only to look inwards, but to look outwards, to behold with astonishment and enthusiasm a divine company and a divine captain. The only fun of being a Christian was that a man was not left alone with the Inner Light, but definitely recognized an outer light, fair as the sun, clear as the moon, terrible as an army with banners.

He is a [sane] man who can have tragedy in his heart and comedy in his head.

Education is the period during which you are being instructed by somebody you do not know, about something you do not want to know.