107 Quotes by G. K. Chesterton

Classics are books everyone knows but no has read.

Whatever the word "great" means, Dickens was what it means. Even the fastidious and unhappy who cannot read his books without a continuous critical exasperation, would use the word of him without stopping to think. They feel that Dickens is a great writer even if he is not a good writer.

When duty and religion are really destroyed, it will be by the rich.

Thought only destroys because it broadens. A man’s brain is a bomb,” he cried out, loosening suddenly his strange passion and striking his own skull with violence. "My brain feels like a bomb, night and day. It must expand! It must expand! A man’s brain must expand, if it breaks up the universe.

Wit is a sword; it is meant to make people feel the point as well as see it.

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

The timidity of the child or the savage is entirely reasonable; they are alarmed at this world, because this world is a very alarming place. They dislike being alone because it is verily and indeed an awful idea to be alone. Barbarians fear the unknown for the same reason that Agnostics worship it --because it is a fact.

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

The world will never starve for want of wonders, but for want of wonder.