1,399 Quotes by Gilbert K. Chesterton

There is a corollary to the conception of being too proud to fight. It is that the humble have to do most of the fighting.

Customs are generally unselfish. Habits are nearly always selfish.

Human anger is a higher thing than what is called divine discontent. For you must be angry with something; but you can be discontented with everything.

What we call emancipation is always and of necessity simply the free choice of the soul between one set of limitations and another.

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.

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.

Ten thousand women marched through the streets shouting, 'We will not be dictated to,' and went off and became stenographers.

Doing nothing is sometimes one of the highest of the duties of man.

Powerful men who have powerful passions use much of their strength in forging chains for themselves.