1,399 Quotes by Gilbert K. Chesterton

Real development is not leaving things behind, as on a road, but drawing life from them, as from a root.

Liberty has produced scepticism, and scepticism has destroyed liberty. The lovers of liberty thought they were leaving it unlimited, when they were only leaving it undefined. They thought they were only leaving it undefined, when they were really leaving it undefended.

One can hardly think too little of one's self. One can hardly think too much of one's soul.

Original sin is the only doctrine that's been empirically validated by 2,000 years of human history.

The Catholic Church is like a thick steak, a glass of red wine, and a good cigar.

I wish we could sometimes love the characters in real life as we love the characters in romances. There are a great many human souls whom we should accept more kindly, and even appreciate more clearly, if we simply thought of them as people in a story.

There are two kinds of peacemakers in the modern world; and they are both, though in various ways, a nuisance. The first peacemaker is the man who goes about saying that he agrees with everybody. He confuses everybody. The second peacemaker is the man who goes about saying that everybody agrees with him. He enrages everybody. Between the two of them they produce a hundred times more disputes and distractions than we poor pugnacious people would ever have thought of in our lives.

The poor complain that they are governed badly. The rich complain that they are governed at all.

Silence is the unbearable repartee.