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Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes - Page 12

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An enormous amount of modern ingenuity is expended on finding defences for the indefensible conduct of the powerful. As I have said above, these defences generally exhibit themselves most emphatically in the form of

An enormous amount of modern ingenuity is expended on finding defences for the indefensible conduct of the powerful. As I have said above, these defences generally exhibit themselves most emphatically in the form of appeals to physical science. And of all the forms in which science, or pseudo-science, has come to the rescue of the rich and stupid, there is none so singular as the singular invention of the theory of races.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Powerful, Stupid, Race
Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.191, Simon and Schuster

People generally quarrel because they cannot argue.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Fear, People, Atheism

Cleanliness is not next to godliness nowadays, for cleanliness is made an essential and godliness is regarded as an offence.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Essentials, Next, Cleanliness

Progress is the mother of all problems.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Mother, Progress, Problem

When giving treats to friends or children, give them what they like, emphatically not what is good for them.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Children, Giving, Advice

A man is angry at a libel because it is false, but at a satire because it is true.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Men, Satire, Libel

Certain new theologians dispute original sin, which is the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Christian, Orthodoxy, Sin
Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.9, Simon and Schuster

The vulgar man is always the most distinguished, for the very desire to be distinguished is vulgar.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Men, Vulgarity Is, Class

Art is born when the temporary touches the eternal.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Art, Born, Eternal

Tradition does not mean a dead town; it does not mean that the living are dead but that the dead are alive. It means that it still matters what Penn did two hundred years ago or what Franklin did a hundred years ago; I never could feel in New York that it mattered what anybody did an hour ago.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
New York, Mean, Years

Do not enjoy yourself. Enjoy dances and theaters and joy-rides and champagne and oysters; enjoy jazz and cocktails and night-clubs if you can enjoy nothing better; enjoy bigamy and burglary and any crime in the calendar, in preference to the other alternative; but never learn to enjoy yourself.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Night, Oysters, Joy

All things are from God; and above all, reason and imagination and the great gifts of the mind. They are good in themselves; and we must not altogether forget their origin even in their perversion.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Imagination, Mind, Forget
"The Dagger with Wings: A Father Brown Mystery". Book by Gilbert K. Chesterton, 1926.

Coincidence is a spiritual pun.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Spiritual, Definitions, Coincidence

The trouble with Christianity is, not that its failed, but that it's never been tried . . . not that it can't remake the world, but that it's difficult.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Failure, World, Trouble

Every great literature has always been allegorical - allegorical of some view of the whole universe. The 'Iliad' is only great because all life is a battle, the 'Odyssey' because all life is a journey, the Book of Job because all life is a riddle.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Jobs, Book, Journey
"A Defense of Nonsense". "The Defendant" by G. K. Chesterton, 1901.

The greatest political storm flutters only a fringe of humanity. But an ordinary man and an ordinary woman and their ordinary children literally alter the destiny of nations.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Children, Destiny, Men

The materialist theory of history, that all politics and ethics are the expression of economics, is a very simple fallacy indeed. It consists simply of confusing the necessary conditions of life with the normal preoccupations of life, that are quite a different thing.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Simple, Men, Expression
"The Everlasting Man". Book by Gilbert K. Chesterton (Part I: On the Creature Called Man, Chapter VII: The War of the Gods and Demons), 1925.

Art consists of limitation. The most beautiful part of every picture is the frame.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Beauty, Beautiful, Art

Moderate strength is shown in violence, supreme strength is shown in levity.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Laughing, Violence, Levity
Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.267, Simon and Schuster

Atheism is indeed the most daring of all dogmas . . . for it is the assertion of a universal negative.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Atheist, Atheism, Negative

A strange fanaticism fills our time: the fanatical hatred of morality, especially of Christian morality.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Christian, Hatred, Morality

All conservatism is based upon the idea that if you leave things alone you leave them as they are. But you do not. If you leave a thing alone you leave it to a torrent of change.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Change, Ideas, Political
Orthodoxy (1908) ch. 7

Paradox - Truth standing on her head to get attention.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Attention, Paradox, Standing

One of the great disadvantages of hurry is that it takes such a long time.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Life, Time, Hate

A child's instinct is almost perfect in the matter of fighting. The child's hero is always the man or boy who defends himself suddenly and splendidly against aggression.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Children, Hero, Fighting

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