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Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes - Page 21

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It is the first law of practical courage. To be in the weakest camp is to be in the strongest school.

It is the first law of practical courage. To be in the weakest camp is to be in the strongest school.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Courage, School, Law
Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.156, Simon and Schuster

White... is not a mere absence of colour; it is a shining and affirmative thing, as fierce as red, as definite as black... God paints in many colours; but He never paints so gorgeously, I had almost said so gaudily, as when He paints in white.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Flower, Color White, Shining

For the only courage worth calling courage must necessarily mean that the soul passes a breaking point and does not break.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Mean, Point Break, Soul
Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.104, Simon and Schuster

There are two kinds of paradoxes. They are not so much the good and the bad, nor even the true and the false. Rather they are the fruitful and the barren; the paradoxes which produce life and the paradoxes that merely announce death. Nearly all modern paradoxes merely announce death.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Two, Kind, Paradox

You may think a crime horrible because you could never commit it. I think it is horrible because I could commit it.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Thinking, May, Crime

Not only does "orthodox" no longer mean being right, it practically means being wrong.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Mean, Doe, Orthodox

No man must be superior to the things that are common to men.... Not only are we all in the same boat, but we are all seasick.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Men, Common, Boat
Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.285, Simon and Schuster

You never know the best about men until you know the worst about them.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Men, Worst, Knows

The perplexity of life arises from there being too many interesting things in it for us to be interested properly in any of them.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Science, Interesting, Decision

The most dangerous criminal now is the entirely lawless modern philosopher. Compared to him, burglars and bigamists are essentially moral men.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Philosophical, Men, Criminals
Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.171, Simon and Schuster

The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one's own country as a foreign land.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Country, Travel, Adventure
"Does Travel Really Matter Anyway?" by Kim Mance, www.huffingtonpost.com. December 11, 2008.

Man is at his tallest when he bows.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Faith, Men, Bows

It is not greedy to enjoy a good dinner, any more than it is to enjoy a good concert. But I do think there is something greedy about trying to enjoy the dinner and the concert at the same time.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Thinking, Greed, Trying

The wine they drink in Paradise They make in Haute Lorraine.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Wine, Paradise, Drink
Gilbert Keith Chesterton, “A Cider Song”

The big corporation is not in the least remarkable for efficiency; it is only too big to be blamed for its inefficiency.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Corporations, Efficiency, Bigs

It might reasonably be maintained that the true object of all human life is play. Earth is a task garden; heaven is a playground. To be at last in such secure innocence that one can juggle with the universe and the stars, to be so good that one can treat everything as a joke - that may be, perhaps, the real end and final holiday of human souls.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Faith, Stars, Real
"All Things Considered". Book by Gilbert K. Chesterton, 1908.

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

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Art, Italian, Men

When people impute special vices to the Christian Church, they seem entirely to forget that the world (which is the only other thing there is) has these vices much more. The Church has been cruel; but the world has been much more cruel. The Church has plotted; but the world has plotted much more. The Church has been superstitious; but it has never been so superstitious as the world is when left to itself.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Christian, People, Special
"The Illustrated London News" Magazine, December 14, 1907.

To be simple is the best thing in the world; to be modest is the next best thing. I am not sure about being quiet.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Simple, Simplicity, World

Nine times out of ten it is the coarse word that condemns an evil, and the refined word that excuses it.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Evil, Nine, Excuse

The modern world has far too little understanding of the art of keeping young. Its notion of progress has been to pile one thing on top of another, without caring if each thing was crushed in turn. People forgot that the human soul can enjoy a thing most when there is time to think about it and be thankful for it. And by crowding things together they lost the sense of surprise; and surprise is the secret of joy.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Art, Caring, Thinking

Now, among the heresies that are spoken in this matter is the habit of calling a grey day a "colourless" day. Grey is a colour, and can be a very powerful and pleasing colour.... A grey clouded sky is indeed a canopy between us and the sun; so is a green tree, if it comes to that. But the grey umbrellas differ as much as the green in their style and shape, in their tint and tilt. One day may be grey like steel, and another grey like dove’s plumage. One may seem grey like the deathly frost, and another grey like the smoke of substantial kitchens.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Powerful, Sky, Tree

[V]ariety of climate should always go with stability of abode.... an Englishman’s house is not only his castle; it is his fairy castle. Clouds and colours of every varied dawn and eve are perpetually touching and turning it from clay to gold, or from gold to ivory. There is a line of woodland beyond a corner of my garden which is literally different on every one of the three hundred and sixty-five days. Sometimes it seems as near as a hedge, and sometimes as far as a faint and fiery evening cloud.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Garden, Weather, Ivory

Materialists and madmen never have doubts.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Doubt, Madmen, Causation
Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.16, Simon and Schuster

It is not only possible to say a great deal in praise of play; it is really possible to say the highest things in praise of it. It might reasonably be maintained that the true object of all human life is play. Earth is a task garden; heaven is a playground.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Garden, Play, Heaven
"All Things Considered". Book by Gilbert K. Chesterton, 1908.

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