It’s what I call common sense, properly understood,’ replied Father Brown. ’It really is more natural to believe a preternatural story, that deals with things we don’t understand, than a natural story that contradicts things we do understand. Tell me that the great Mr Gladstone, in his last hours, was haunted by the ghost of Parnell, and I will be agnostic about it. But tell me that Mr Gladstone, when first presented to Queen Victoria, wore his hat in her drawing-room and slapped her on the back and offered her a cigar, and I am not agnostic at all. That is not impossible; it’s only incredible. But I’m much more certain it didn’t happen than that Parnell’s ghost didn’t appear; because it violates the laws of the world I do understand. So it is with that tale of the curse. It isn’t the legend that I disbelieve — it’s the history.


G.K. Chesterton

  Email Quote to Friends   Link to Quote   Create Short URL  Publish Text About This Quote   Share on Facebook, Twitter, and more
  See Recommended Quotes For You

Related

It really is more natural to believe a preternatural story, that deals with things we don’t unders...
G.K. CHESTERTON
I like to open for a band as it brings on sort of a challenge and it makes things more interesting. ...
KELLY JONES
Life is weird and wonderful like that, is it not.
SONYA.E.WILLIAMS
Even after the dehadhyas (the belief that 'I am the body') has gone, people will say, "I saw you eat...
DADA BHAGWAN
The two men had a conversation. Brief, cryptic, to the point. As though they had exchanged numbers a...
ARUNDHATI ROY
28. Feelings are neither right nor wrong. It's what you do with them that causes the problems.
JAMES C. DOBSON
Integrity is not everything, but it is the only thing that matters.
JEFFREY FRY
We'll sort of get over the marriage first and then maybe look at the kids. But obviously we want...
PRINCE WILLIAM
Family is the most important thing in the world.
PRINCESS DIANA
You philosophers are lucky men. You write on paper and paper is patient. Unfortunate Empress that I ...
CATHERINE THE GREAT
As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend.
KING SOLOMON
I was always told from the hat-makers that you should have your hair up because it shows the hat mor...
ZARA PHILLIPS
My dad's not a big talker.
ZARA PHILLIPS
My dad can be pretty critical sometimes.
ZARA PHILLIPS
You cannot make horses 'safe.'
ZARA PHILLIPS
I don't have a stylist, and I do most of my shopping online, just because it's easier. I don...
ZARA PHILLIPS
My dear mamma is quite right when she says that we must lay down principles and not depart from them...
MARIE ANTOINETTE
PS: It's all gossip about the prince. I'm not in the habit of taking my girlfriends' bea...
WALLIS SIMPSON
I hate this place. I shall hate it to my grave.
WALLIS SIMPSON
I look a hundred and weigh 110 - you won't love me when you see the wreck England has made me.
WALLIS SIMPSON
A woman's life can really be a succession of lives, each revolving around some emotionally compe...
WALLIS SIMPSON
You have no idea how hard it is to live out a great romance.
WALLIS SIMPSON
For a gallant spirit there can never be defeat.
WALLIS SIMPSON
A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.
KING SOLOMON
There is nothing new except what has been forgotten.
MARIE ANTOINETTE
I have seen all, I have heard all, I have forgotten all.
MARIE ANTOINETTE
I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men, and German to my horse.
CHARLES V
It would be doing me great injustice to think that I have any feeling of indifference to my country;...
MARIE ANTOINETTE
I found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble.
AUGUSTUS
A crown is merely a hat that lets the rain in.
FREDERICK THE GREAT
Nothing is more useless in developing a nation's economy than a gun, and nothing blocks the road...
HUSSEIN OF JORDAN
It is necessary to try to pass one's self always; this occupation ought to last as long as life.
QUEEN CHRISTINA
There's nothing like a jolly good disaster to get people to start doing something.
PRINCE CHARLES
I don't even know how to use a parking meter, let alone a phone box.
PRINCESS DIANA
What must it be like for a little boy to read that daddy never loved mummy?
PRINCESS DIANA
The kindness and affection from the public have carried me through some of the most difficult period...
PRINCESS DIANA
People think that at the end of the day a man is the only answer. Actually, a fulfilling job is bett...
PRINCESS DIANA
I don't want expensive gifts; I don't want to be bought. I have everything I want. I just wa...
PRINCESS DIANA
There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded.
PRINCESS DIANA
I think the biggest disease the world suffers from in this day and age is the disease of people feel...
PRINCESS DIANA
Everyone of us needs to show how much we care for each other and, in the process, care for ourselves...
PRINCESS DIANA
The biggest disease this day and age is that of people feeling unloved.
PRINCESS DIANA
When you are happy you can forgive a great deal.
PRINCESS DIANA
I want to walk into a room, be it a hospital for the dying or a hospital for the sick children, and ...
PRINCESS DIANA
If you find someone you love in your life, then hang on to that love.
PRINCESS DIANA
Anywhere I see suffering, that is where I want to be, doing what I can.
PRINCESS DIANA
HIV does not make people dangerous to know, so you can shake their hands and give them a hug: Heaven...
PRINCESS DIANA
Being a princess isn't all it's cracked up to be.
PRINCESS DIANA
I like to be a free spirit. Some don't like that, but that's the way I am.
PRINCESS DIANA
When girls are educated, you get effects that cascade throughout society.
QUEEN RANIA OF JORDAN
Of course democracy is good, but it is a process, not a prescription.
QUEEN RANIA OF JORDAN
People sometimes think of 'queen' as a title that's shrouded with protocol and formality...
QUEEN RANIA OF JORDAN
Being popular comes when you have everything. But to be liked, it means that you must be treating pe...
QUEEN RANIA OF JORDAN
For many, the hijab represents modesty, piety and devotion to God, and I truly respect that. But the...
QUEEN RANIA OF JORDAN
I want to be that person who could sacrifice everything for others.
QUEEN RANIA OF JORDAN
If one girl with courage is a revolution, imagine what feats we can achieve together.
QUEEN RANIA OF JORDAN
Iron hand in a velvet glove.
CHARLES V
The greatest and noblest pleasure which we have in this world is to discover new truths, and the nex...
FREDERICK THE GREAT
No one would feel embarrassed about seeking help for a child if they broke their arm - and we really...
KATE MIDDLETON
Some children are tackling tough times without the support that can help them because the adults in ...
KATE MIDDLETON
I have learned that delivering the best possible palliative care to children is vital, providing chi...
KATE MIDDLETON
We have seen that two heads are better than one when dealing with a mental health problem.
KATE MIDDLETON
Yes, well I really hope I can make a difference, even in the smallest way. I am looking forward to h...
KATE MIDDLETON
I think it's very important that you make your own decision about what you are. Therefore you...
PRINCE WILLIAM
For our part, we shall continue to work for the new dawn when all the Children of Abraham and their ...
HUSSEIN OF JORDAN
Cambodia wanted no part of SEATO. We would look after ourselves as neutrals and Buddhists.
NORODOM SIHANOUK
Here in the Netherlands there are towns that take part in the throwing of toilet bowls for a laugh.
WILLEM-ALEXANDER OF THE NETHERLANDS
Start with God - the first step in learning is bowing down to God; only fools thumb their noses at s...
KING SOLOMON
I venture to allude to the impression which seemed generally to prevail among their brethren across ...
KING GEORGE V
I realize that much will be asked of me, yet I am resolved to accept it as a great and splendid task...
BEATRIX OF THE NETHERLANDS
John Foster Dulles had called on me in his capacity as Secretary of State, and he had exhausted ever...
NORODOM SIHANOUK
In praising Antony I have dispraised Caesar.
CLEOPATRA
I get a huge buzz from spending time with kids.
PRINCE HARRY
I'd rather go by bus.
PRINCE CHARLES
You will find in me a loyal head of state who is ready listen and understand, warn and advise as wel...
FELIPE VI OF SPAIN
There must not be favoured treatment for those occupying a position of public responsibility.
FELIPE VI OF SPAIN
We mustn't hesitate to cut corruption at its roots.
FELIPE VI OF SPAIN
Millions of Spaniards have Catalonia in their hearts.
FELIPE VI OF SPAIN
I begin my reign with profound emotion at the honour of accepting the Crown, aware of the responsibi...
FELIPE VI OF SPAIN
I don't see why OPEC countries should continue to cut production just to keep the price of oil h...
HAMAD BIN KHALIFA AL THANI
I really don't want you to think of Qatar as a hydrocarbon country alone. We know that hydrocarb...
HAMAD BIN KHALIFA AL THANI
The reform process began with the historic consensus on the Charter of National Action, in which the...
HAMAD BIN ISA AL KHALIFA
By being friends with all, we are not alone.
HAMAD BIN ISA AL KHALIFA
History shows that no enemy remains hostile forever, nor do friends remain friendly forever. For tha...
HAMAD BIN ISA AL KHALIFA
We should face reality and our past mistakes in an honest, adult way. Boasting of glory does not mak...
HUSSEIN OF JORDAN
It is in the midst of disasters that bold men grow bolder.
HENRY IV
To be honest dinner conversations was the worst bit about being a child and listening to the boring ...
PRINCE HARRY
My people and I have come to an agreement which satisfied us both. They are to say what they please,...
FREDERICK THE GREAT
My main mistake was to have made an ancient people advance by forced marches toward independence, he...
MOHAMMED REZA PAHLAVI
You can't comfort the afflicted with afflicting the comfortable.
PRINCESS DIANA
We made our entrance into Paris. As for honors, we received all that we could possibly imagine; but ...
MARIE ANTOINETTE
I am convinced that our movement will be more demoralized and weakened by blind and uncritical admir...
MARIE LOUISE
I always admired virtue - but I could never imitate it.
CHARLES II
Celerity is never more admired than by the negligent.
CLEOPATRA
Sometimes it just means flying from Bogota to New York via Amsterdam to have a day with your kids. W...
WILLEM-ALEXANDER OF THE NETHERLANDS
Hugs can do great amounts of good - especially for children.
PRINCESS DIANA
For to tempt and to be tempted are things very nearly allied - whenever feeling has anything to do i...
CATHERINE THE GREAT
The King of Spain displayed his esteem for me in a manner that I confess flattered me pleasantly whe...
LOUIS XIV
Of course we are coming to invest in Germany - that is certain. Most airplanes in the fleet of Qatar...
HAMAD BIN KHALIFA AL THANI
Democracy is not just constitutional and legislative rules; it is a culture and practice and adherin...
HAMAD BIN ISA AL KHALIFA

More G.K. Chesterton

Divinity is great enough to be divine; it is great enough to call itself divine. But as humanity gro...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Poets do not go mad; but chess-players do. Mathematicians go mad, and cashiers; but creative artists...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Are you a devil?"
"I am a man," answered Father Brown gravely; "and therefore have all devils i...
G.K. CHESTERTON
For children are innocent and love justice, while most of us are wicked and naturally prefer mercy.
G.K. CHESTERTON
The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untr...
G.K. CHESTERTON
The criminal is the creative artist; the detective only the critic.
G.K. CHESTERTON
Who would condescend to strike down the mere things that he does not
fear? Who would debase him...
G.K. CHESTERTON
If we are bound to improve, we need not trouble to improve. The pure doctrine of progress is the bes...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Variability is one of the virtues of a woman. It avoids the crude requirement of polygamy. So long a...
G.K. CHESTERTON
The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because generally t...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.
G.K. CHESTERTON
The traveler sees what he sees. The tourist sees what he has come to see.
G.K. CHESTERTON
We men and women are all in the same boat, upon a stormy sea. We owe to each other a terrible and tr...
G.K. CHESTERTON
If you happen to read fairy tales, you will observe that one idea runs from one end of them to the o...
G.K. CHESTERTON
There is the great lesson of 'Beauty and the Beast,' that a thing must be loved before it is lovable...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy ...
G.K. CHESTERTON
An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wron...
G.K. CHESTERTON
I am not absentminded. It is the presence of mind that makes me unaware of everything else.
G.K. CHESTERTON
A tragey means always a man's struggle with that which is stronger than man.
G.K. CHESTERTON
Realism is simply Romanticism that has lost its reason...that is its reason for existing.
G.K. CHESTERTON
The word "good" has many meanings. For example, if a man were to shoot his grandmother at a range of...
G.K. CHESTERTON
There's a lot of difference between listening and hearing.
G.K. CHESTERTON
Do not free a camel of the burden of his hump; you may be freeing him from being a camel.
G.K. CHESTERTON
Now the best relation to our spiritual home is to be near enough to love it. But the next best is to...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Science must not impose any philosophy, any more than the telephone must tell us what to say.
G.K. CHESTERTON
There are two ways to get enough. One is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to de...
G.K. CHESTERTON
We do not need to get good laws to restrain bad people. We need to get good people to restrain us fr...
G.K. CHESTERTON
We have all read in scientific books, and, indeed, in all romances, the story of the man who has for...
G.K. CHESTERTON
A pickpocket is obviously a champion of private enterprise. But it would perhaps be an exaggeration ...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Drink because you are happy, but never because you are miserable.
G.K. CHESTERTON
Nine times out of ten a man’s broad-mindedness is necessarily the narrowest thing about him. This ...
G.K. CHESTERTON
We have never even begun to understand a people until we have found something that we do not underst...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Through all this ordeal his root horror had been isolation, and there are no words to express the ab...
G.K. CHESTERTON
There are no words to express the abyss between isolation and having one ally. It may be conceded to...
G.K. CHESTERTON
White is not a mere absence of color; it is a shining and affirmative thing, as fierce as red, as de...
G.K. CHESTERTON
The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is b...
G.K. CHESTERTON
They said that I should lose my ideals and begin to believe in the methods of practical politicians....
G.K. CHESTERTON
Hope is the power of being cheerful in circumstances that we know to be desperate.
G.K. CHESTERTON
The great Gaels of Ireland are the men that God made mad,
For all their wars are merry, and al...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Just at present you only see the tree by the light of the lamp. I wonder when you would ever see the...
G.K. CHESTERTON
If it's worth doing, it's worth doing badly. (on not perfectionism to put things off) .
G.K CHESTERTON
An adventure is only an inconvenience, rightly considered.
G.K CHESTERTON
Angels fly because they take themselves lightly.
G.K CHESTERTON
I've searched all the parks in all the cities and found no statues of committees.
G.K CHESTERTON
I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and do...
G.K CHESTERTON
How you think when you lose determines how long it will be until you win.
G.K CHESTERTON
To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labours, and holidays; to be...
G.K. CHESTERTON
In prosperity, our friends know us. In adversity, we know our friends
G.K. CHESTERTON
Happiness is a state of the soul; a state in which our natures are full of the wine of an ancient yo...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Drink because you are happy, but never because you are miserable. Never drink when you are wretched ...
G.K. CHESTERTON
The thing I hate about an argument is that it always interrupts a discussion.
G.K. CHESTERTON
I left the fairy tales lying on the floor of the nursery, and I have not found any books so sensible...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Most modern freedom is at root fear. It is not so much that we are too bold to endure rules; it is r...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Therefore I see no wrong in riding with the Nightmare to-night; she whinnies to me from the rocking ...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Imagination does not breed insanity. Exactly what does breed insanity is reason. Poets do not go mad...
G.K. CHESTERTON
The most extraordinary thing in the world is an ordinary man and an ordinary woman and their ordinar...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Another savage trait of our time is the disposition to talk about material substances instead of abo...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relat...
G.K. CHESTERTON
According to most philosophers, God in making the world enslaved it. According to Christianity, in m...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions.
G.K. CHESTERTON
A Second Childhood.”

When all my days are ending
And I have no song to sing,
...
G.K. CHESTERTON
If there is one fact we really can prove, from the history that we really do know, it is that despot...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Religious liberty might be supposed to mean that everybody is free to discuss religion. In practice ...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Love means to love that which is unlovable; or it is no virtue at all.
G.K. CHESTERTON
It [feminism] is mixed up with a muddled idea that women are free when they serve their employers bu...
G.K. CHESTERTON
I believe in getting into hot water; it keeps you clean.
G.K. CHESTERTON
A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.
G.K. CHESTERTON
Do not be so open-minded that your brains fall out.
G.K. CHESTERTON
To love means loving the unlovable. To forgive means pardoning the unpardonable. Faith means believi...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Tradition does not mean a dead town; it does not mean that the living are dead but that the dead are...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Modern art has to be what is called ‘intense.’ it is not easy to define being intense; but, roug...
G.K. CHESTERTON
It is terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged.
G.K. CHESTERTON
Through all this ordeal his root horror had been isolation, and there are no words to express the ab...
G.K. CHESTERTON
But when first the two black dragons sprang out of the fog upon the small clerk, they had merely th...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Monotony has nothing to do with a place; monotony, either in its sensation or its infliction, is sim...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Without education, we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously.
G.K. CHESTERTON
The riddles of God are more satisfying than the solutions of man.
G.K. CHESTERTON
A woman uses her intelligence to find reasons to support her intuition.
G.K. CHESTERTON
There are no rules of architecture for a castle in the clouds.
G.K. CHESTERTON
When we were children we were grateful to those who filled our stockings at Christmas time. Why are ...
G.K. CHESTERTON
If there were no God, there would be no atheists.
G.K. CHESTERTON
I have little doubt that when St. George had killed the dragon he was heartily afraid of the princes...
G.K. CHESTERTON
The woman does not work because the man tells her to work and she obeys. On the contrary, the woman ...
G.K. CHESTERTON
And as I close this chaotic volume I open again the strange small book from which all Christianity c...
G.K. CHESTERTON
In the struggle for existence, it is only on those who hang on for ten minutes after all is hopeless...
G.K. CHESTERTON
I wish we could sometimes love the characters in real life as we love the characters in romances. Th...
G.K. CHESTERTON
That is the one eternal education: to be sure enough that something is true that you dare to tell it...
G.K. CHESTERTON
The man who kills a man kills a man.
The man who kills himself kills all men.
As far as he...
G.K. CHESTERTON
The things we see every day are the things we never see at all.
G.K. CHESTERTON
When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become c...
G.K. CHESTERTON
The main point of Christianity was this: that Nature is not our mother: Nature is our sister.
G.K. CHESTERTON
We should always endeavor to wonder at the permanent thing, not at the mere exception. We should be ...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Humility is the mother of giants. One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the ...
G.K. CHESTERTON
The world will never starve for want of wonders; but only for want of wonder.
G.K. CHESTERTON
But the new rebel is a skeptic, and will not entirely trust anything. He has no loyalty; therefore h...
G.K. CHESTERTON
We fear men so much, because we fear God so little. One fear cures another. When man's terror scares...
G.K. CHESTERTON
There are two ways of getting home; and one of them is to stay there.
G.K. CHESTERTON
Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.
G.K. CHESTERTON
It may well be on such a night of clouds and cruel colors that there is brought forth upon the earth...
G.K. CHESTERTON
It was his home now. But it could not be his home till he had gone from it and returned to it. Now h...
G.K. CHESTERTON
The Catholic Church is like a thick steak, a glass of red wine, and a good cigar.
G.K. CHESTERTON
A man must be prepared not only to be a martyr, but to be a fool. It is absurd to say that a man is ...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Every man has forgotten who he is. One may understand the cosmos, but never the ego; the self is mor...
G.K. CHESTERTON
The modern mind is forced towards the future by a certain sense of fatigue, not unmixed with terror,...
G.K. CHESTERTON
People wonder why the novel is the most popular form of literature; people wonder why it is read mor...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Among the rich you will never find a really generous man even by accident. They may give their money...
G.K. CHESTERTON
All the towering materialism which dominates the modern mind rests ultimately upon one assumption; a...
G.K. CHESTERTON
The modern world is not evil; in some ways the modern world is far too good. It is full of wild and ...
G.K. CHESTERTON
The difference between the poet and the mathematician is that the poet tries to get his head into th...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Coincidences are spiritual puns.
G.K. CHESTERTON
This man's spiritual power has been precisely this, that he has distinguished between custom and cre...
G.K. CHESTERTON
There again," said Syme irritably, "what is there poetical about being in revolt? You might as well ...
G.K. CHESTERTON
The most poetical thing in the world is not being sick.
G.K. CHESTERTON
The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul...
G.K. CHESTERTON
The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity.
G.K. CHESTERTON
I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness double...
G.K. CHESTERTON
...but this is the real objection to that torrent of modern talk about treating crime as disease, ab...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Think of all those ages through which men have had the courage to die, and then remember that we hav...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Thrift is poetic because it is creative; waste is unpoetic because it is waste.
G.K. CHESTERTON
The future is a blank wall on which every man can write his own name as large as he likes; the past ...
G.K. CHESTERTON
The more truly we can see life as a fairytale, the more clearly the tale resolves itself into war wi...
G.K. CHESTERTON
It is quite easy to see why a legend is treated, and ought to be treated, more respectfully than a b...
G.K. CHESTERTON
I always like a dog so long as he isn't spelled backward.
G.K. CHESTERTON
She(Joan of Arc) put her dreams and her sentiment into her aims, where they ought to be; she put her...
G.K. CHESTERTON
In the glad old days, before the rise of modern morbidities...it used to be thought a disadvantage t...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Modern tragic writers have to write short stories; if they wrote long stories…cheerfulness would c...
G.K. CHESTERTON
The way to love anything is to realize that it may be lost.
G.K. CHESTERTON
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it.
G.K. CHESTERTON
... just as when we see a pig in a litter larger than the other pigs, we know that by an unalterable...
G.K. CHESTERTON
And it did certainly appear that the prophets had put the people (engaged in the old game of Cheat t...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Then the small man suddenly ran after them and said:
"I want to get my haircut. I say, do you k...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Adam Wayne, the conqueror, with his face flung back and his mane like a lion's, stood with his great...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Cooking is an art; it has in it personality, and even perversity, for the definition of an art is th...
G.K. CHESTERTON
I can only put it sufficiently curtly in a careless simile. A Socialist means a man who thinks a wal...
G.K. CHESTERTON
In the lower classes the school master does not work for the parent, but against the parent. Modern ...
G.K. CHESTERTON
The only persons who seem to have nothing to do with the education of the children are the parents.
G.K. CHESTERTON
We have actually contrived to invent a new kind of hypocrite. The old hypocrite, Tartuffe or Pecksni...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Now I have no notion at all of propounding a new ideal. There is no new ideal imaginable by the madn...
G.K. CHESTERTON
If you attempt an actual argument with a modern paper of opposite politics, you will have no answer ...
G.K. CHESTERTON
There are, I believe, some who still deny that England is governed by an oligarchy. It is quite enou...
G.K. CHESTERTON
But of all the instances of error arising from this physical fancy, the worst is that we have before...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Thrift is the really romantic thing; economy is more romantic than extravagance... But the thing is ...
G.K. CHESTERTON
A head can be beaten small enough until it fits the hat.
G.K. CHESTERTON
No one has even begun to understand comradeship who does not accept with it a certain hearty eagerne...
G.K. CHESTERTON
No one has even begun to understand comradeship who does not accept with it a certain hearty eagerne...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Men have not got tired of Christianity; they have never found enough Christianity to get tired of. M...
G.K. CHESTERTON
It is very currently suggested that the modern man is the heir of all the ages, that he has got the ...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Thrift is poetic because it is creative.
G.K. CHESTERTON
The chicken does not exist only in order to produce another egg. He may also exist to amuse himself,...
G.K. CHESTERTON
No man demands what he desires; each man demands what he fancies he can get. Soon people forget what...
G.K. CHESTERTON
There is not really any courage at all in attacking hoary or antiquated things, any more than in off...
G.K. CHESTERTON
When a man really tells the truth, the first truth he tells is that he himself is a liar.
G.K. CHESTERTON
In all legends men have thought of women as sublime separately but horrible in a herd.
G.K. CHESTERTON
All true friendliness begins with fire and food and drink and the recognition of rain or frost. ...E...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Babies need not to be taught a trade, but to be introduced to a world. To put the matter shortly, wo...
G.K. CHESTERTON
An historic institution, which never went right, is really quite much of a miracle as an institution...
G.K. CHESTERTON
As for the general view that the Church was discredited by the War—they might as well say that the...
G.K. CHESTERTON
The paradise of my fancy is one where pigs have wings
G.K. CHESTERTON
..."vers libre," (free verse) or nine-tenths of it, is not a new metre any more than sleeping in a d...
G.K. CHESTERTON
I do not deny, but strongly affirm, the right of the State to interfere to cure a great evil. I say ...
G.K. CHESTERTON
To complain that I could only be married once was like complaining that I had only been born once.
G.K. CHESTERTON
If you argue with a madman, it is extremely probable that you will get the worst of it; for in many ...
G.K. CHESTERTON
It is quite certain that the skirt means female dignity, not female submission; it can be proved by ...
G.K. CHESTERTON
On the third day the friends of Christ coming at daybreak to the place found the grave empty and the...
G.K. CHESTERTON
The center of every man's existence is a dream. Death, disease, insanity, are merely material accide...
G.K. CHESTERTON
I had tried to be happy by telling myself that man is an animal, like any other which sought its mea...
G.K. CHESTERTON
[Fairy tales] make rivers run with wine only to make us remember, for one wild moment, that they run...
G.K. CHESTERTON
That a good man may have his back to the wall is no more than we knew already, but that God could ha...
G.K. CHESTERTON
If Innocent is happy, it is because he is innocent. If he can defy the conventions, it is just becau...
G.K. CHESTERTON
There is something sinister about putting a leprechaun in a workhouse. The only solid comfort is tha...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Man may behold what ugliness he likes if he is sure that he will not worship it; but there are some ...
G.K. CHESTERTON
If we are calm," replied the policeman, "it is the calm of organized resistance."
"Eh?" said Sy...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Do not be proud of the fact that your grandmother was shocked at something which your are accustomed...
G.K. CHESTERTON
As long as the vision of heaven is always changing, the vision of earth will be exactly the same. No...
G.K. CHESTERTON
I mean that we here are on the wrong side of the tapestry,' answered Father Brown. 'The things that ...
G.K. CHESTERTON
How you think when you lose determines how long it will be until you win.
G.K. CHESTERTON
The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens...
G.K. CHESTERTON
No man who worships education has got the best out of education... Without a gentle contempt for edu...
G.K. CHESTERTON
A man's minor actions and arrangements ought to be free, flexible, creative; the things that should ...
G.K. CHESTERTON
A detective story generally describes six living men discussing how it is that a man is dead. A mode...
G.K. CHESTERTON
These are the days when the Christian is expected to praise every creed except his own.
G.K. CHESTERTON
There are no uninteresting things, only uninterested people.
G.K. CHESTERTON
Men invent new ideals because they dare not attempt old ideals. They look forward with enthusiasm, b...
G.K. CHESTERTON
There is a limit to human charity," said Lady Outram, trembling all over.

"There is," sai...
G.K. CHESTERTON
He wondered why the pelican was the symbol of charity, except it was that it wanted a good deal of c...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Charity is the power of defending that which we know to be indefensible. Hope is the power of being ...
G.K. CHESTERTON
We do not admire, we hardly excuse, the fanatic who wrecks this world for love of the other. But wha...
G.K. CHESTERTON
Dear Sir: Regarding your article 'What's Wrong with the World?' I am. Yours truly,
G.K. CHESTERTON
There are those who hate Christianity and call their hatred an all-embracing love for all religions.
G.K. CHESTERTON
We have all forgotten what we really are. All that we call common sense and rationality and practica...
G.K. CHESTERTON
He may be mad, but there's method in his madness. There nearly always is method in madness. It's wha...
G.K. CHESTERTON
If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.
G.K. CHESTERTON
The first two facts which a healthy boy or girl feels about sex are these: first that it is beautifu...
G.K. CHESTERTON
I regard golf as an expensive way of playing marbles.
G.K. CHESTERTON
My country, right or wrong,” is a thing that no patriot would think of saying except in a desperat...
G.K. CHESTERTON
The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.
G.K. CHESTERTON
Can you not see, […] that fairy tales in their essence are quite solid and straightforward; but th...
G.K. CHESTERTON
the things common to all men are more important than the things peculiar to any men. Ordinary things...
G.K. CHESTERTON