1,399 Quotes by Gilbert K. Chesterton

If we are bound to improve, we need not trouble to improve. The pure doctrine of progress is the best of all reasons for not being a progressive.

If you spell a word wrong you have some temptation to think it wrong.

There'd be a lot less scandal if people didn't idealize sin and pose as sinners.

Business, especially big business, is now organized like an army. It is, as some would say, a sort of mild militarism without bloodshed; as I say, a militarism without the military virtues.

It is shorter to state the things forbidden than the things permitted; precisely because most things are permitted and only a few things forbidden.

Suppose, my dear Chadd, suppose it is we who are the idiots because we are not afraid of devils in the dark?

Government has become ungovernable; that is, it cannot leave off governing. Law has become lawless; that is, it cannot see where laws should stop. The chief feature of our time is the meekness of the mob and the madness of the government.

When some English moralists write about the importance of having character, they appear to mean only the importance of having a dull character.

The wise old fairy tales never were so silly as to say that the prince and the princess lived peacefully ever afterwards. The fairy tales said that the prince and princess lived happily ever afterwards; and so they did. They lived happily, although it is very likely that from time to time they threw the furniture at each other.