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Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes - Page 37

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And my haunting instinct that somehow good was not merely a tool to be used, but a relic to be guarded, like the goods from Crusoe's ship--even that had been the wild whisper of something originally wise, for, according

And my haunting instinct that somehow good was not merely a tool to be used, but a relic to be guarded, like the goods from Crusoe's ship--even that had been the wild whisper of something originally wise, for, according to Christianity, we were indeed the survivors of a wreck, the crew of a golden ship that had gone down before the beginning of the world.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Wise, Survivor, Tools
Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.59, Simon and Schuster

In anything that does cover the whole of your life - in your philosophy and your religion - you must have mirth. If you do not have mirth you will certainly have madness.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Philosophy, Doe, Mirth

There is a law written in the darkest of the Books of Life, and it is this: If you look at a thing nine hundred and ninety-nine times, you are perfectly safe; if you look at it the thousandth time, you are in frightful danger of seeing it for the first time.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Book, Ninety Nine, Law

We are passing into a social phase in which unless a heroic effort is made for human dignity and freedom, gold will be the sole method of government and therefore the sole standard of manners.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Government, Effort, Gold

What is the good of words if they aren't important enough to quarrel over? Why do we choose one word more than another if there isn't any difference between them? If you called a woman a chimpanzee instead of an angel, wouldn't there be a quarrel about a word? If you're not going to argue about words, what are you going to argue about? Are you going to convey your meaning to me by moving your ears? The Church and the heresies always used to fight about words, because they are the only thing worth fighting about.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Moving, Angel, Fighting

I entertain a private suspicion that physical sports were much more really effective and beneficent when they were not taken quite so seriously. One of the first essentials of sport being healthy is that it should be delightful; it is rapidly becoming a false religion with austerities and prostrations.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Sports, Taken, Healthy

He has come to the most dreadful conclusion a literary man can come to, the conclusion that the ordinary view is the right one. It is only the last and wildest kind of courage that can stand on a tower before ten thousand people and tell them that twice two is four.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Men, Views, Two
Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.152, Simon and Schuster

For Tommy, on that hot and empty afternoon, was in a state of mind in which grown-up people go away and write books about their whole world, and stories about what it is like to be married, and plays about the important problems of modern times. Tommy, being only ten years old, was not able to do harm on this large and handsome scale.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Book, Writing, Years

Great truths can only be forgotten and can never be falsified.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Forgotten

Your offer," he said, "is far too idiotic to be declined.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Said, Idiotic, Offers
Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.150, Simon and Schuster

I suppose every one must have reflected how primeval and how poetical are the things that one carries in one's pocket; the pocket-knife, for instance, the type of all human tools, the infant of the sword. Once I planned to write a book of poems entirely about things in my pockets. But I found it would be too long; and the age of the great epics is past.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Book, Writing, Epic

It was not the house that grew dull, but I that grew dull in it. My wife was better than all women, and yet I could not feel it.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Wife, House, Dull
Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.382, Simon and Schuster

Properly speaking, of course, there is no such thing as a return to nature, because there is no such thing as a departure from it. The phrase reminds one of the slightly intoxicated gentleman who gets up in his own dining room and declares firmly that he must be getting home.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Home, Gentleman, Dining

Thrift is poetic because it is creative; waste is unpoetic because it is waste.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Creative, Waste, Dustbin
Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.302, Simon and Schuster

In the end it will not matter to us whether we wrote well or ill; whether we fought with flails or reeds. It will matter to us greatly on what side we fought.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Matter, Sides, Reeds

A thing may be too sad to be believed or too wicked to be believed or too good to be believed; but it cannot be too absurd to be believed in this planet of frogs and elephants, of crocodiles and cuttle-fish.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Animal, Elephants, Wicked

Oh, most unhappy man,' he cried, 'try to be happy! You have red hair like your sister.' My red hair, like red flames, shall burn up the world,' said Gregory.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Men, Hair, Flames
Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.275, Simon and Schuster

There is the great lesson of 'Beauty and the Beast,' that a thing must be loved before it is lovable.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Lessons, Fairytale, Fairy Tale
Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.35, Simon and Schuster

A naked moon stood in a naked sky.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Moon, Sky, Naked
Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.175, Simon and Schuster

Even the moon is only poetical because there is a man in the moon.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Moon, Men, Man In The Moon
Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.175, Simon and Schuster

No man should leave in the universe anything of which he is afraid.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Fear, Men, Should
Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.201, Simon and Schuster

Do not be proud of the fact that your grandmother was shocked at something which your are accustomed to seeing or hearing without being shocked. ... It may be that your grandmother was an extremely lively and vital animal and that you are a paralytic.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Grandmother, Animal, May

Just at present you only see the tree by the light of the lamp. I wonder when you would ever see the lamp by the light of the tree.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Light, Tree, Lamps
Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.149, Simon and Schuster

There is a corollary to the conception of being too proud to fight. It is that the humble have to do most of the fighting.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Humble, Fighting, Proud

A mystic is a man who separates heaven and earth even if he enjoys them both.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Men, Heaven, Earth
"William Blake". Book by Gilbert K. Chesterton, 1920.

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