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Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes about Literature

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Journalism is popular, but it is popular mainly as fiction. Life is one world, and life seen in the newspapers is another.

Journalism is popular, but it is popular mainly as fiction. Life is one world, and life seen in the newspapers is another.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Fiction, Literature, World
"On the Cryptic and the Elliptic", All Things Considered, 1908.

Drink because you are happy, but never because you are miserable.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Drinking, Alcohol, Literature
Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.163, Simon and Schuster

The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Mind, Literature, Mouths

Cruelty is, perhaps, the worst kid of sin. Intellectual cruelty is certainly the worst kind of cruelty.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Kids, Intellectual, Literature

Music with dinner is an insult both to the cook and the violinist.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Music, Food, Literature
Quoted in The NewYork Times, 16 Nov 1967.

Compromise used to mean that half a loaf was better than no bread. Among modern statesmen it really seems to mean that half a loaf; is better than a whole loaf.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Mean, Half, Literature
1910 What's Wrong with the World, ch.3.

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

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Song, Air, Literature

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

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Literature, Innocence, Gullibility

Artistic temperament is the disease that afflicts amateurs.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Writing, Literature, Disease

Buddhism is not a creed, it is a doubt.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Buddhism, Doubt, Literature

I was planning to go into architecture. But when I arrived, architecture was filled up. Acting was right next to it, so I signed up for acting instead.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Filled Up, Acting, Literature

Women prefer to talk in twos, while men prefer to talk in threes.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Women, Men, Literature

The beautification of the world is not a work of nature, but a work of art, then it involves an artist.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Art, Literature, World

The cosmos is about the smallest hole that a man can hide his head in.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Men, Cosmos, Literature
Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.15, Simon and Schuster

The ordinary scientific man is strictly a sentimentalist. He is a sentimentalist in this essential sense, that he is soaked and swept away by mere associations.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Men, Aquariums, Literature

Savages and modern artists are alike strangely driven to create something uglier than themselves. but the artists find it harder.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Art, Savages, Literature

The present condition of fame is merely fashion.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Fashion, Literature, Fame

Man seems to be capable of great virtues but not of small virtues; capable of defying his torturer but not of keeping his temper.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Men, Literature, Virtue

What people call impartiality may simply mean indifference, and what people call partiality may simply mean mental activity.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Mean, People, Literature

The hands that had made the sun and stars were too small to reach the huge heads of the cattle. Upon this paradox, we might almost say upon this jest, all the literature of our faith is founded.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Stars, Hands, Literature

If, therefore, nonsense is really to be the literature of the future, it must have its own version of the Cosmos to offer; the world must not only be tragic, romantic, and religious, it must be nonsensical also.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Religious, Cosmos, Literature
"The Defendant". Book by Gilbert K. Chesterton, 1901.

The decay of society is praised by artists as the decay of a corpse is praised by worms.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Art, Decay, Literature

The aim of good prose words is to mean what they say. The aim of good poetical words is to mean what they do not say.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Art, Mean, Literature

Happiness is a mystery, like religion, and should never be rationalised.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Happiness, Literature, Mystery
Gilbert K. Chesterton (1909). “Heretics”

All slang is metaphor, and all metaphor is poetry.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Literature, Metaphor, Slang
Defendant (1901) "Defence of Slang"

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