Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes about Truth

Truths turn into dogmas the minute they are disputed.

Truths turn into dogmas the minute they are disputed.

Truth, Lying, Dogma

Truth, of course, must of necessity be stranger than fiction, for we have made fiction to suit ourselves.

Truth, Fiction, Suits

Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.145, Simon and Schuster

There is a case for telling the truth; there is a case for avoiding the scandal; but there is no possible defense for the man who tells the scandal, but does not tell the truth

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Truth, Honesty, Men

In the struggle for existence, it is only on those who hang on for ten minutes after all is hopeless, that hope begins to dawn.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Truth, Struggle, Dawn

Truth must necessarily be stranger than fiction, for fiction is the creation of the human mind and therefore congenial to it.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Truth, Mind, Fiction

The Club of Queer Trades "The Singular Speculation of the House-Agent" (1905)

Christian Science … is the direct denial both of science and of Christianity, for Science rests wholly on the recognition of truth and Christianity on the recognition of pain.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Christian, Truth, Pain

The life of a thinking man will probably be divided into two parts -- the first in which he desires to exterminate modern thinkers, and the second in which he desires to watch them exterminating each other. ... Suppose, for instance, there is an old story and a new skeptic who is skeptical of the story. We have only to wait a little while for a yet newer skeptic who is skeptical of the skeptic. He will probably find the old notion actually a help in his new notion. This process is an abstract truth applying to anything, apart from agreement or disagreement.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Truth, Men, Thinking

Correctitude implies nowadays a formal or fastidious use of words; and what is wanted is not so much the correct as the living use of words. It is the memory of the meaning of a word which is the life of the word.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Truth, Memories, Use