Gilbert K Chesterton quotes

Marriage is an adventure, like going to war.

I regard golf as an expensive way of playing marbles.

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

Love means to love that which is unlovable; or it is no virtue at all.

Man does not live by soap alone; and hygiene, or even health, is not much good unless you can take a healthy view of it or, better still, feel a healthy indifference to it.

There are no rules of architecture for a castle in the clouds.

Youth is the period in which a man can be hopeless. The end of every episode is the end of the world. But the power of hoping through everything, the knowledge that the soul survives its adventures, that great inspiration comes to the middle-aged.

The family is the test of freedom; because the family is the only thing that the free man makes for himself and by himself.

A woman uses her intelligence to find reasons to support her intuition.

When we were children we were grateful to those who filled our stockings at Christmas time. Why are we not grateful to God for filling our stockings with legs?

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

It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it.

The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one's own country as a foreign land.

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.

Man does not live by soap alone; and hygiene, or even health, is not much good unless you can take a healthy view of it or, better still, feel a healthy indifference to it.

'My country, right or wrong' is a thing no patriot would ever think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying 'My mother, drunk or sober.'

I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite.

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

The true object of all human life is play. Earth is a task garden; heaven is a playground.

People who make history know nothing about history. You can see that in the sort of history they make.

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

Once I planned to write a book of poems entirely about the things in my pocket. But I found it would be too long; and the age of the great epics is past.

The way to love anything is to realize that it may be lost.

The purpose of Compulsory Education is to deprive the common people of their commonsense.

The only defensible war is a war of defense.

No man who worships education has got the best out of education... Without a gentle contempt for education no man's education is complete.

The only defensible war is a war of defense.

I was planning to go into architecture. But when I arrived, architecture was filled up. Acting was right next to it, so I signed up for acting instead.

Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of readiness to die.

When we were children we were grateful to those who filled our stockings at Christmas time. Why are we not grateful to God for filling our stockings with legs?

Democracy means government by the uneducated, while aristocracy means government by the badly educated.

The trouble with always trying to preserve the health of the body is that it is so difficult to do without destroying the health of the mind.

Marriage is an adventure, like going to war.

Brave men are all vertebrates; they have their softness on the surface and their toughness in the middle.

Marriage is an adventure, like going to war.

The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.

Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to that arrogant oligarchy who merely happen to be walking around.

When it comes to life the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude.

Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect and supreme experience if only one had a colored pencil long enough to draw on the ceiling.

Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere.

A teacher who is not dogmatic is simply a teacher who is not teaching.

Experience which was once claimed by the aged is now claimed exclusively by the young.

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

Happiness is a mystery, like religion, and should never be rationalised.

One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak.

It is not funny that anything else should fall down; only that a man should fall down. Why do we laugh? Because it is a gravely religious matter: it is the Fall of Man. Only man can be absurd: for only man can be dignified.

The family is the test of freedom; because the family is the only thing that the free man makes for himself and by himself.

A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.

Half a truth is better than no politics.

Art consists of limitation. The most beautiful part of every picture is the frame.

Youth is the period in which a man can be hopeless. The end of every episode is the end of the world. But the power of hoping through everything, the knowledge that the soul survives its adventures, that great inspiration comes to the middle-aged.

I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.

Happiness is a mystery, like religion, and should never be rationalised.

Without education we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously.

Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect and supreme experience if only one had a colored pencil long enough to draw on the ceiling.

Happy is he who still loves something he loved in the nursery: He has not been broken in two by time; he is not two men, but one, and he has saved not only his soul but his life.

The paradox of courage is that a man must be a little careless of his life even in order to keep it.

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.

Men always talk about the most important things to perfect strangers. In the perfect stranger we perceive man himself; the image of a God is not disguised by resemblances to an uncle or doubts of wisdom of a mustache.

We make our friends; we make our enemies; but God makes our next door neighbour.

All slang is metaphor, and all metaphor is poetry.

When we were children we were grateful to those who filled our stockings at Christmas time. Why are we not grateful to God for filling our stockings with legs?