1,399 Quotes by Gilbert K. Chesterton

The pure modernist is merely a snob; he cannot bear to be a month behind the fashion.

There is nothing the matter with Americans except their ideals. The real American is all right; it is the ideal American who is all wrong.

We talk of wild animals, but the wildest animal is man.

Silver is sometimes more valuable than gold ... that is, in large quantities.

Leaving the complications of the human breakfast-table out of account, in an elemental sense, the egg only exists to produce the chicken. But the chicken does not exist only in order to produce another egg. He may also exist to amuse himself, to praise God, and even to suggest ideas to a French dramatist. Being a conscious life, he is, or may be, valuable in himself.

Man seems to be capable of great virtues but not of small virtues; capable of defying his torturer but not of keeping his temper.

The word good has many meanings...

Exactly what the fairy tale does is this: it accustoms [the child] to the idea that these limitless terrors had a limit, that these shapeless enemies have enemies in the knights of God, that there is something in the universe more mystical than darkness, and stronger than strong fear.

Being 'contented' ought to mean in English, as it does in French, being pleased. Being content with an attic ought not to mean being unable to move from it and resigned to living in it; it ought to mean appreciating all there is in such a position.