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Gilbert K. Chesterton

Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes

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Famous Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes

“All the controversialists who have become conscious of the real issue are already saying of our ideal exactly what used to be said of the Socialists' ideal. They are saying that private property is too ideal not to be impossible. They are saying that private enterprise is too good to be true. They are saying that the idea of ordinary men owning ordinary possessions is against the laws of political economy and requires an alteration in human nature.”

MenHumansSaidIdeasRealLawPoliticalUsedPoliticsEconomyIssuesImpossibleHuman NatureOrdinaryConsciousIdealsPropertyPossessionUsed To BeBeing TrueLiberalismEnterprisePrivate PropertyOrdinary ManAlterationsPolitical EconomyPrivate EnterpriseToo Good To Be True
Author:Gilbert K. Chesterton
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“And I will add this point of merely personal experience of humanity: when men have a real explanation they explain it, eagerly and copiously and in common speech, as Huxley freely gave it when he thought he had it. When they have no explanation to offer, they give short dignified replies, disdainful of the ignorance of the multitude.”

MenGivingRealHumanityCommonIgnoranceOffersSpeechAddExplanationMultitudesPersonal ExperiencesHuxley
Author:Gilbert K. Chesterton
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“The perils, rewards, punishments, and fulfillments of an adventure must be real, or the adventure is only a shifting and heartless nightmare. If I bet I must be made to pay, or there is no poetry in betting. If I challenge I must be made to fight, or there is no poetry in challenging. If I vow to be faithful I must be cursed when I am unfaithful, or there is no fun vowing.”

IfsMadeRealFightingFunChallengesPayAdventureRewardsPunishmentFaithfulFulfillmentNightmareBeing RealShiftingPerilVowCursedHeartlessBeing FaithfulUnfaithfulBetting
Author:Gilbert K. Chesterton
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“Very few people in the world would care to listen to the real defense of their own characters. The real defense, the defense which belongs to the Day of Judgment, would make such damaging admissions, would clear away so many artificial virtues, would tell such tragedies of weakness and failure, that a man would sooner be misunderstood and censured by the world than exposed to that awful and merciless eulogy.”

PeopleMenWorldRealCharacterCareVirtueClearJudgmentWeaknessTragedyDefenseAwfulExposedArtificialMisunderstoodEulogyAdmission
Author:Gilbert K. Chesterton
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“The man who lives in a small community lives in a much larger world. He knows much more of the fierce variety and uncompromising divergences of men…In a large community, we can choose our companions. In a small community, our companions are chosen for us. Thus in all extensive and highly civilized society groups come into existence founded upon sympathy, and shut out the real world more sharply than the gates of a monastery. There is nothing really narrow about the clan; the thing which is really narrow is the clique.”

KnowsMenWorldRealCommunityExistenceGroupsChosenVarietyGatesCompanionCivilizedReal WorldFierceClansCivilized SocietyMonasteriesCliqueUncompromisingDivergenceSmall Communities
Author:Gilbert K. Chesterton
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“...but this is the real objection to that torrent of modern talk about treating crime as disease, about making prison merely a hygienic environment like a hospital, of healing sin by slow scientific methods. The fallacy of the whole thing is that evil is a matter of active choice whereas disease is not.”

RealMatterWholeChoicesEvilSinHealingEnvironmentModernCrimeDiseaseMethodPrisonActiveHospitalsObjectionsFallacyScientific Method
Book:The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton
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“Sir Hiram Maxim is a genuine and typical example of the man of science, romantic, excitable, full of real but somewhat obvious poetry, a little hazy in logic and philosophy, but full of hearty enthusiasm and an honorable simplicity. He is, as he expresses it, "an old and trained engineer," and is like all of the old and trained engineers I have happened to come across, a man who indemnifies himself for the superhuman or inhuman concentration required for physical science by a vague and dangerous romanticism about everything else.”

MenLittlesRealPhilosophyRomanceScienceHappenedDangerousExampleHe ManLogicSimplicityObviousGenuineEnthusiasmConcentrationEngineersTypicalHonorableVagueMaximsRomanticismInhumanSuperhumanPhysical ScienceHeartyHazy
Author:Gilbert K. Chesterton
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“The real trouble with this world of ours is not that it is an unreasonable world, nor even that it is a reasonable one. The commonest kind of trouble is that it is nearly reasonable, but not quite. ... It looks just a little more mathematical and regular than it is; its exactitude is obvious, but its inexactitude is hidden; its wilderness lies in wait.”

WorldLooksKindLittlesRealLyingWaitingTroubleThis WorldMathematicsObviousMathematicalReasonableWildernessUnreasonableExactitude
Author:Gilbert K. Chesterton
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“The idea of private property universal but private, the idea of families free but still families, of domesticity democratic but still domestic, of one man one house - this remains the real vision and magnet of mankind. The world may accept something more official and general, less human and intimate. But the world will be like a broken-hearted woman who makes a humdrum marriage because she may not make a happy one; Socialism may be the world's deliverance, but it is not the world's desire.”

MenWorldHumansMayStillsIdeasRealInspirationDesireFaithHouseAcceptingVisionMankindBrokenUniversalRemainsPropertyDemocraticChristian InspirationalSocialismIntimateOfficialsOne ManHeartedPrivate PropertyDeliveranceMagnetBroken HeartedDomesticityHumdrum
Book:The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton
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“It might reasonably be maintained that the true object of all human life is play. Earth is a task garden; heaven is a playground. To be at last in such secure innocence that one can juggle with the universe and the stars, to be so good that one can treat everything as a joke - that may be, perhaps, the real end and final holiday of human souls.”

HumansMayRealSoulEndsPlayInspirationMightEarthLastsLife IsFaithUniverseHeavenStarsObjectsJokesGardenTasksTreatsFinalsSecureInnocenceHuman LifeHolidayHuman SoulPlaygrounds
Author:Gilbert K. Chesterton
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“People accuse journalism of being too personal; but to me it has always seemed far too impersonal. It is charged with tearing away the veils from private life; but it seems to me to be always dropping diaphanous but blinding veils between men and men. The Yellow Press is abused for exposing facts which are private; I wish the Yellow Press did anything so valuable. It is exactly the decisive individual touches that it never gives; and a proof of this is that after one has met a man a million times in the newspapers it is always a complete shock and reversal to meet him in real life.”

PeopleMenGivingRealFactsSeemsIndividualWishMillionsMetsPressesValuableProofNewspapersReal LifeJournalismJournalistShockYellowVeilsPrivate LifeDroppingExposingReversal
Author:Gilbert K. Chesterton
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“IF we desire European civilization to be a raid and a rescue, we shall insist rather that souls are in real peril than that their peril is ultimately unreal. And if we wish to exalt the outcast and the crucified, we shall rather wish to think that a veritable God was crucified, rather than a mere sage or hero. Above all, if we wish to protect the poor we shall be in favour of fixed rules and clear dogmas. The rules of a club are occasionally in favour of the poor member. The drift of a club is always in favour of the rich one.”

IfsThinkingRealSoulDesireWishPoorRichClearHeroCivilizationProtectMembersMereClubsFixedDogmaRescueSageFavourPerilUnrealOutcast
Author:Gilbert K. Chesterton
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“...I will praise the English climate till I die—even if I die of the English climate. There is no weather so good as English weather. Nay, in a real sense there is no weather at all anywhere but in England. In France you have much sun and some rain; in Italy you have hot winds and cold winds; in Scotland and Ireland you have rain, either thick or thin; in America you have hells of heat and cold, and in the Tropics you have sunstrokes varied by thunderbolts. But all these you have on a broad and brutal scale, and you settle down into contentment or despair.”

IfsRealAmericaDiesSunHellWindColdDespairRainEnglandPraiseHotClimateScalesWeatherFranceSettlingHeatContentmentBroadsThickIrelandBrutalScotlandSettling DownTropicsThunderboltsCold WindHeat And Cold
Author:Gilbert K. Chesterton
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