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The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton

Book by Gilbert K. Chesterton · 30 quotes · Men, Ifs, World

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The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes

“...But nature does not say that cats are more valuable than mice; nature makes no remark on the subject. She does not even say that the cat is enviable or the mouse pitiable. We think the cat superior because we have (or most of us have) a particular philosophy to the effect that life is better than death. But if the mouse were a German pessimist mouse, he might not think that the cat had beaten him at all. He might think he had beaten the cat by getting to the grave first.”

IfsThinkingFirstsDoePhilosophyMightLife IsSubjectsEffectsParticularCatValuableGravesSuperiorsMiceBeatenRemarksPessimist
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“But a somewhat more liberal and sympathetic examination of mankind will convince us that the cross is even older than the gibbet, that voluntary suffering was before and independent of compulsory; and in short that in most important matters a man has always been free to ruin himself if he chose.”

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“At any innocent tea-table we may easily hear a man say, "Life is not worth living." We regard it as we regard the statement that it is a fine day; nobody thinks that it can possibly have any serious effect on the man or on the world. And yet if that utterance were really believed, the world would stand on its head.”

IfsThinkingMenWorldMayLife IsEffectsHe ManSeriousFineRegardTablesStatementsInnocentTeaWorth LivingUtteranceLife Is Not Worth LivingFine Day
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“You've got that eternal idiotic idea that if anarchy came it would come from the poor. Why should it? The poor have been rebels, but they have never been anarchists; they have more interest than any one else in there being some decent government. The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes been objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all. Aristocrats were always anarchists, as you can see from the barons' wars.”

IfsMenShouldHas BeensIdeasWarCountrySometimesGovernmentInterestPoorRichEternalDecentGoing AwayAnarchyRebelStakesAnarchistRich ManPoor ManIdioticGuineaYacht
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“Who would condescend to strike down the mere things that he does not fear? Who would debase himself to be merely brave, like any common prizefighter? Who would stoop to be fearless--like a tree? Fight the thing that you fear. You remember the old tale of the English clergyman who gave the last rites to the brigand of Sicily, and how on his death-bed the great robber said, 'I can give you no money, but I can give you advice for a lifetime: your thumb on the blade, and strike upwards.' So I say to you, strike upwards, if you strike at the stars.”

IfsGivingDoeSaidI CanLastsRememberFightingStarsCommonTreeAdviceBedBraveMereLifetimeStrikesTalesFearlessBladesThumbsNo MoneyRiteRobbersStoopsClergymenDeath Bed
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“There again," said Syme irritably, "what is there poetical about being in revolt? You might as well say that it is poetical to be sea-sick. Being sick is a revolt. Both being sick and being rebellious may be the wholesome thing on certain desperate occasions; but I'm hanged if I can see why they are poetical...It is things going right," he cried, "that is poetical! Our digestions, for instance, going sacredly and silently right, that is the foundation of all poetry...the most poetical thing in the world is not being sick.”

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“Why do all the clerks and navvies in the railway trains look so sad and tired, so very sad and tired? I will tell you. It is because they know that the train is going right. It is because they know that whatever place they have taken a ticket for that place they will reach. It is because after they have passed Sloane Square they know that the next station must be Victoria, and nothing but Victoria. Oh, their wild rapture! oh, their eyes like stars and their souls again in Eden, if the next station were unaccountably Baker Street!”

IfsKnowsLooksSoulEyeNextStarsTakenStreetsTiredTrainStationsSquaresTicketsEdenRaptureVictoriaClerksVery SadBakersRailwaySo SadBaker Street
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