Authors:

Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes - Page 15

All Quotes Adventure Age Aging Alcohol Anarchy Anger Apology Appearance Appreciation Architecture Arguing Army Art Assumption Atheism Atheist Attitude Authority Balance Beer Belief Birth Boat Boredom Buddhism Business Character Charity Chess Children Choices Christ Christianity Christmas Church Coincidence Common Sense Community Confession Contentment Country Courage Crime Criticism Culture Darkness Democracy Desire Destiny Devil Dignity Discipline Dogma Doubt Drinking Duty Earth Education Effort Encouragement Environment Equality Evil Failure Faith Family Fashion Fear Feelings Fighting Food Free Love Freedom Friendship Fun Funny Genius Giving God Gold Gratitude Greek Grief Happiness Hate Hatred Heart Heaven History Holiday Home Hope House Human Nature Humanity Humility Hurt Ignorance Imagination Independence Innocence Inspiration Inspirational Inspiring Islam Jesus Journey Joy Justice Knowledge Language Laughter Leadership Learning Leaving Liberalism Liberty Life Literature Logic Losing Love Lying Madness Materialism Memories Military Modesty Moon Morality Morning Motivational Nature Optimism Pain Painting Passion Past Peace Personality Pessimism Philosophy Plato Pleasure Politics Poverty Power Pride Progress Purpose Quality Rage Rain Reading Reality Religion Revolution Romance Running Sacrifice Sadness Sanity School Science Silence Simplicity Sin Sleep Socialism Son Soul Spirituality Sports Spring Style Suffering Tea Teaching Thankful Thanksgiving Theology Time Today Tolerance Tradition Tragedy Travel Truth Tyranny Understanding Virtue Vision Voting Waiting Wall War Water Wealth Wife Wine Wisdom Wit Worship Writing Youth
A modern vegetarian is also a teetotaler, yet there is no obvious connection between consuming vegetables and not consuming fermented vegetables. A drunkard, when lifted laboriously out of the gutter, might well be

A modern vegetarian is also a teetotaler, yet there is no obvious connection between consuming vegetables and not consuming fermented vegetables. A drunkard, when lifted laboriously out of the gutter, might well be heard huskily to plead that he had fallen there through excessive devotion to a vegetable diet.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Vegetables, Connections, Gutters

Let us not decide what is good, but let it be considered good not to decide it.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.134, Simon and Schuster

How can it be a large career to tell other people's children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one's own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No; a woman's function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute. I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Children, Motherhood, Careers
"What's Wrong with the World". Book by Gilbert K. Chesterton (Part Three: Feminism, or The Mistake About Woman, Chapter 3: The Emancipation of Domesticity), 1910.

Around every corner is another gift waiting to surprise us, and it will surprise us if we can achieve control over our natural tendencies to make comparisons [to things that are better rather than things that are worse], to take things for granted [rather than imagining how much worse things would be if they weren't there and so feeling grateful], and to feel entitled!

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Grateful, Waiting, Feelings

Classic literature is still something that hangs in the air like a song.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Song, Air, Literature

Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Inspirational, Book, Reading
Defendant (1901) "Defence of Penny Dreadfuls"

Here ends another day, during which I have had eyes, ears, hands and the great world around me. Tomorrow begins another day. Why am I allowed two?

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Eye, Two, Hands

Journalism only tells us what men are doing; it is fiction that tells us what they are thinking, and still more what they are feeling. If a new scientific theory finds the soul of a man in his dreams, at least it ought not to leave out his day-dreams. And all fiction is only a diary of day-dreams instead of days. And this profound preoccupation of men's minds with certain things always eventually has an effect even on the external expression of the age.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Dream, Men, Thinking

The real argument against aristocracy is that it always means the rule of the ignorant. For the most dangerous of all forms of ignorance is ignorance of work.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Real, Ignorance, Mean

There is one thing which gives radiance to everything. It is the idea of something around the corner.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Hope, Ideas, Giving

The greenhorn is the ultimate victor in everything; it is he that gets the most out of life.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Literature, Innocence, Gullibility

Latter-day scepticism is fond of calling itself progressive; but scepticism is really reactionary. Scepticism goes back; it attempts to unsettle what has already been settled. Instead of trying to break up new fields with its plough, it simply tries to break up the plough.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Trying, Calling, Fields

The modern world is a crowd of very rapid racing cars all brought to a standstill and stuck in a block of traffic.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Block, Car, Racing

The world will very soon be divided, unless I am mistaken, into those who still go on explaining our success, and those somewhat more intelligent who are trying to explain our failure.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Intelligent, Trying, Goes On

With every step of our lives we enter into the middle of some story which we are certain to misunderstand.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Stories, Steps, Middle

The aim of life is appreciation; there is no sense in not appreciating things; and there is no sense in having more of them if you have less appreciation of them.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Love, Appreciation, Gratitude

We lose our bearings entirely by speaking of the 'lower classes' when we mean humanity minus ourselves.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Mean, Class, Humanity

Soldiers have many faults, but they have one redeeming merit; they are never worshippers of force. Soldiers more than any other men are taught severely and systematically that might is not right. The fact is obvious. The might is in the hundred men who obey. The right (or what is held to be right) is in the one man who commands them.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Military, Army, Men

Self-denial is the test and definition of self-government.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Self, Government, Culture

Human anger is a higher thing than what is called divine discontent. For you must be angry with something; but you can be discontented with everything.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Anger, Divine, Discontent

The average man votes below himself; he votes with half a mind or a hundredth part of one. A man ought to vote with the whole of himself, as he worships or gets married. A man ought to vote with his head and heart, his soul and stomach, his eye for faces and his ear for music; also (when sufficiently provoked) with his hands and feet. If he has ever seen a fine sunset, the crimson color of it should creep into his vote. The question is not so much whether only a minority of the electorate votes. The point is that only a minority of the voter votes.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Sunset, Eye, Heart

Dipsomaniac and the abstainer are not only both mistaken, but they both make the same mistake. They both regard wine as a drug and not as a drink.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Mistake, Wine, Alcohol

I agree with the realistic Irishman who said he preferred to prophesy after the event.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Advice, Events, Realistic

There are two kinds of charlatan: the man who is called a charlatan, and the man who really is one. The first is the quack who cures you; the second is the highly qualified person who doesn't.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Men, Two, Firsts

The woman does not work because the man tells her to work and she obeys. On the contrary, the woman works because she has told the man to work and he hasn’t obeyed.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Men, Doe, Contrary

You May Also Like: