Quotessence
Home / Authors / Gilbert K. Chesterton
Gilbert K. Chesterton

Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes

Writer

Filter quotes by topic

AllMenIfsWorldPeopleMayModernDoeLiteratureMeanShouldHumansKnowsThinkingBelieveHas BeensChildrenReasonRealTwoWay

Famous 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
Book:The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton
Create image

“For the mass of men the idea of artistic creation can only be expressed by an idea unpopular in present discussions - the idea of property... Property is merely the art of the democracy... One would think, to hear people talk, that the Rothschilds and the Rockefellers were on the side of property. But obviously they are the enemies of property; because they are enemies of their own limitations.”

PeopleThinkingMenArtIdeasPoliticsSidesEnemyEconomyDemocracyCreationMassPropertyArtisticLimitationDiscussionLiberalismArtistic Creation
Author:Gilbert K. Chesterton
Create image

“Journalism only tells us what men are doing; it is fiction that tells us what they are thinking, and still more what they are feeling. If a new scientific theory finds the soul of a man in his dreams, at least it ought not to leave out his day-dreams. And all fiction is only a diary of day-dreams instead of days. And this profound preoccupation of men's minds with certain things always eventually has an effect even on the external expression of the age.”

IfsThinkingMenMindStillsSoulFeelingsDreamAgeCertainFictionEffectsExpressionTheoryOughtProfoundJournalismDiariesPreoccupationScientific Theory
Author:Gilbert K. Chesterton
Create image

“The life of a thinking man will probably be divided into two parts -- the first in which he desires to exterminate modern thinkers, and the second in which he desires to watch them exterminating each other. ... Suppose, for instance, there is an old story and a new skeptic who is skeptical of the story. We have only to wait a little while for a yet newer skeptic who is skeptical of the skeptic. He will probably find the old notion actually a help in his new notion. This process is an abstract truth applying to anything, apart from agreement or disagreement.”

ThinkingMenFirstsLittlesTwoHelpingStoriesTruthDesireWaitingProcessWatchesModernNotionInstanceAbstractAgreementDividedThinkerSkepticalDisagreementSkepticThinking Man
Author:Gilbert K. Chesterton
Create image

“It may be a mere patriotic bias, though I do not think so, but it seems to me that the English aristocracy is not only the type, but is the crown and flower of all actual aristocracies; it has all the oligarchical virtues as well as all the defects. It is casual, it is kind, it is courageous in obvious matters; but it has one great merit that overlaps even these. The great and very obvious merit of the English aristocracy is that nobody could possibly take it seriously.”

ThinkingWellsKindMayMatterSeemsVirtueFlowerTypeMereObviousMeritCourageousPatrioticCrownsBiasDefectsCasualAristocracy
Author:Gilbert K. Chesterton
Create image

“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
Book:The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton
Create image

“My brother, Cecil Edward Chesterton, was born when I was about five years old; and, after a brief pause, began to argue. He continued to argue to the end. I am glad to think that through all those years we never stopped arguing; and we never once quarreled. Perhaps the principal objection to a quarrel is that it interrupts an argument.”

ThinkingYearsEndsBornFiveBrotherArgumentArguingGladMy BrotherFive YearsPrincipalPausesQuarrelsObjectionsFive Year Olds
Author:Gilbert K. Chesterton
Create image

“The great intellectual tradition that comes down to us from the past was never interrupted or lost through such trifles as the sack of Rome, the triumph of Attila, or all the barbarian invasions of the Dark Ages. It was lost after the introduction of printing, the discovery of America, the founding of the Royal Society, and all the enlightenment of the Renaissance and the modern world. It was there, if anywhere, that there was lost or impatiently snapped the long thin delicate thread that had descended from distant antiquity; the thread of that unusual human hobby: the habit of thinking.”

IfsThinkingWorldHumansLongAgeAmericaPastLostDarkModernHabitIntellectualEnlightenmentDiscoveryTraditionTriumphUnusualRomeDelicateThreadHobbiesRoyalFoundingModern WorldIntroductionInvasionDark AgesRenaissanceTriflesPrintingAntiquityBarbariansInterruptedDiscovery Of America
Author:Gilbert K. Chesterton
Create image

“I like the Cyclostyle ink; it is so inky. I do not think there is anyone who takes quite such a fierce pleasure in things being themselves as I do. The startling wetness of water excites and intoxicates me: the fieriness of fire, the steeliness of steel, the unutterable muddiness of mud. It is just the same with people.... When we call a man "manly" or a woman "womanly" we touch the deepest philosophy.”

PeopleThinkingMenPhilosophyWaterPleasureFireFierceSteelMudInkManlyWomanlyWetness
Author:Gilbert K. Chesterton
Create image

“There is at the back of every artist’s mind something like a pattern and a type of architecture. The original quality in any man of imagination is imagery. It is a thing like the landscape of his dreams; the sort of world he would like to make or in which he would like to wander, the strange flora and fauna, his own secret planet, the sort of thing he likes to think about. This general atmosphere, and pattern or a structure of growth, governs all his creations, however varied.”

ThinkingMenWorldMindDreamArtistGrowthImaginationSecretQualityCreationStrangePlanetsTypeOriginalsStructurePatternsArchitectureLikesWanderLandscapeAtmosphereImageryFloraFlora And Fauna
Author:Gilbert K. Chesterton
Create image

“Americans have a taste for…rocking-chairs. A flippant critic might suggest that they select rocking-chairs so that, even when they are sitting down, they need not be sitting still. Something of this restlessness in the race may really be involved in the matter; but I think the deeper significance of the rocking-chair may still be found in the deeper symbolism of the rocking-horse. I think there is behind all this fresh and facile use of wood a certain spirit that is childish in the good sense of the word; something that is innocent, and easily pleased.”

ThinkingNeedsMayStillsMatterUseMightSpiritCertainFoundRaceBehindsInvolvedTasteSittingHorseCriticsDeeperWoodsInnocentChairsSignificanceSelectGood SenseSymbolismRestlessnessSitting DownSitting StillRocking ChairsFlippantRocking Horses
Author:Gilbert K. Chesterton
Create image

“[There is] one distinctly human thing - the story. There can be as good science about a turnip as about a man. ... [Or philosophy, or theology] ...There can be, without any question at all, as good higher mathematics about a turnip as about a man. But I do not think, though I speak in a manner somewhat tentative, that there could be as good a novel written about a turnip as a man.”

ThinkingMenHumansPhilosophyStoriesScienceSpeakNovelWrittenHigherAccountsMathematicsTheologyTurnipsGood Science
Author:Gilbert K. Chesterton
Create image

“I never said a word against eminent men of science. What I complain of is a vague popular philosophy which supposes itself to be scientific when it is really nothing but a sort of new religion and an uncommonly nasty one. When people talked about the fall of man, they knew they were talking about a mystery, a thing they didn't understand. Now they talk about the survival of the fittest: they think they do understand it, whereas they have not merely no notion, they have an elaborately false notion of what the words mean.”

PeopleThinkingMenMeanSaidPhilosophyScienceFallUnderstandingTalkingMysterySurvivalNotionComplainingNastyVagueSurvival Of The FittestFall Of Man
Author:Gilbert K. Chesterton
Create image

“Most Americans are born drunk, and really require a little wine or beer to sober them. They have a sort of permanent intoxication from within, a sort of invisible champagne. Americans do not need to drink to inspire them to do anything, though they do sometimes, I think, need a little for the deeper and more delicate purpose of teaching them how to do nothing.”

ThinkingNeedsLittlesSometimesPurposeBornTeachingInspireDrinkWineDeeperAlcoholInvisibleDrunkBeerPermanentDelicateSoberAlcoholismChampagneIntoxication
Author:Gilbert K. Chesterton
Create image

“I doubt if anyone of any tenderness or imagination can see the hand of a child and not be a little frightened of it. It is awful to think of the essential human energy moving so tiny a thing; it is like imagining that human nature could live in the wing of a butterfly or the leaf of a tree. When we look upon lives so human and yet so small... We feel the same kind of obligation to these creatures that a deity might feel...”

IfsThinkingFeelsHumansLooksKindChildrenLittlesHandsMightMovingEnergyImaginationDoubtTreeHuman NatureCreaturesEssentialsCatholicWingsTinyObligationAwfulLook UpFrightenedButterflyTendernessLeafs
Author:Gilbert K. Chesterton
Create image

“The modern mind will accept nothing on authority, but will accept anything on no authority. Say that the Bible or the Pope says so and it will be dismissed without further examination. But preface your remark with "I think I heard somewhere," or, try but fail to remember the name of some professor who might have said "such-and-such," and it will be immediately accepted as an unshakable fact.”

ThinkingTryingMindSaidFactsMightRememberNamesAcceptingFailingHeardModernAuthorityCatholicAcceptedProfessorsPopeRemarksExaminationUnshakable
Author:Gilbert K. Chesterton
Create image

“We all have a little weakness, which is very natural but rather misleading, for supposing that this epoch must be the end of the world because it will be the end of us. How future generations will get on without us is indeed, when we come to think of it, quite a puzzle. But I suppose they will get on somehow, and may possibly venture to revise our judgments as we have revised earlier judgments.”

ThinkingWorldMayLittlesEndsNaturalGenerationsCivilizationJudgmentWeaknessVenturePuzzlesEnd Of The WorldFuture GenerationMisleadEpochSupposingSupposing That
Author:Gilbert K. Chesterton
Create image

“This is the perpetual and pitiful tragedy of the practical man in practical affairs. He always begins with a flourish of contempt for what he calls theorizing and what people who can do it call thinking. He will not wait for logic-that is, in the most exact sense, he will not listen to reason. It will therefore appear to him an idle and ineffectual proceeding to say that there is a reason for his present failure. Nevertheless, it may be well to say it, and to try and make it clear even to him.”

PeopleThinkingMenTryingWellsMayReasonWisdomWaitingCan DoClearLogicTragedyAffairPracticalsContemptPerpetualNeverthelessIdleProceedingPitiful
Author:Gilbert K. Chesterton
Create image

“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
Create image

“The modern world has far too little understanding of the art of keeping young. Its notion of progress has been to pile one thing on top of another, without caring if each thing was crushed in turn. People forgot that the human soul can enjoy a thing most when there is time to think about it and be thankful for it. And by crowding things together they lost the sense of surprise; and surprise is the secret of joy.”

PeopleIfsThinkingWorldHumansLittlesHas BeensArtSoulTogetherYoungJoyTurnsLostEnjoyUnderstandingSecretProgressOne ThingModernSurpriseNotionCaringModern WorldBeing ThankfulHuman SoulCrushedTime To Think
Author:Gilbert K. Chesterton
Create image

“[Consider] a fence or gate erected across a road] The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, "I don't see the use of this; let us clear it away." To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: "If you don't see the use of it, I certainly won't let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it."”

IfsThinkingWellsMayReasonUseAnswersClearModernTypeIntelligentGatesGoing AwayFenceReformers
Author:Gilbert K. Chesterton
Create image