1,399 Quotes by Gilbert K. Chesterton

I might inform those humanitarians who have a nightmare of new and needless babies (for some humanitarians have that sort of horror of humanity) that if the recent decline in the birth-rate were continued for a certain time, it might end in there being no babies at all; which would console them very much.

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.

I despise Birth-Control first because it is ... an entirely meaningless word; and is used so as to curry favour even with those who would first recoil from its real meaning. The proceeding these quack doctors recommend does not control any birth. ...

The prophet and the quack are alike admired for a generation, and admired for the wrong reasons.

if a man would make his world large, he must be always making himself small.

The sort of man who admires Italian art while despising Italian religion is a tourist and a cad.

The Christian pities men because they are dying, and the Buddhist pities them because they are living. The Christian is sorry for what damages the life of a man; but the Buddhist is sorry for him because he is alive.

This is the age in which thin and theoretic minorities can cover and conquer unconscious and untheoretic majorities.

In Catholicism, the pint, the pipe and the Cross can all fit together.