1,399 Quotes by Gilbert K. Chesterton

When people begin to ignore human dignity, it will not be long before they begin to ignore human rights.

The disadvantage of men not knowing the past is that they do not know the present. History is a hill or high point of vantage, from which alone men see the town in which they live or the age in which they are living.

The moderns do not realize modernity.

[Fairy tales] make rivers run with wine only to make us remember, for one wild moment, that they run with water.

Men did not love Rome because she was great. She was great because they had loved her.

People wonder why the novel is the most popular form of literature; people wonder why it is read more than books of science or books of metaphysics. The reason is very simple; it is merely that the novel is more true than they are.

Ideas are dangerous, but the man to whom they are least dangerous is the man of ideas. He is acquainted with ideas, and moves among them like a lion-tamer. Ideas are dangerous, but the man to whom they are most dangerous is the man of no ideas. The man of no ideas will find the first idea fly to his head like wine to the head of a teetotaller.

Very few reputations are gained by unsullied virtue.

You can't have the family farm without the family.