GK Chesterton Quotes – Wisdom and Wit from the Renowned Author

Fairy tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.

The only way to be truly consoled in this world is to fall in love with it.

The traveler sees what he sees, the tourist sees what he has come to see.

The reason angels can fly is because they take themselves lightly.

Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere.

The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.

A room without books is like a body without a soul.

The world will never starve for want of wonders, but only for want of wonder.

A good novel tells us the truth about its hero, but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.

I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that falls on them unless they act.

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

The difference between treason and patriotism is only a matter of dates.

To love means loving the unlovable. To forgive means pardoning the unpardonable. Faith means believing the unbelievable. Hope means hoping when everything seems hopeless.

A dead thing goes with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.

People who make history know nothing about it. You can see that in the sort of history they make.

An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered; an adventure is an inconvenience rightly considered.

GK Chesterton Quotes – Wisdom and Wit from the Renowned Author part 2

The worst moment for the atheist is when he is really thankful and has nobody to thank.

Tradition means giving a vote to most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead.

The problem with today’s world is that everyone believes they have the right to express their opinion AND have others listen to it. The correct statement of individual rights is that everyone has the right to an opinion, but crucially, that opinion must be rejected if it is not backed by sufficient evidence.

There is a great man who makes every man feel small. But the real great man is the man who makes every man feel great.

The world is full of Christian ideas gone mad.

The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.

The men who really believe in themselves are all in lunatic asylums.

Without education, we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously.

The madman’s explanation of a thing is always complete, and often in a purely rational sense, satisfactory.

The first quenching draught of the draught that has proved too strong for the dwarf.

Youth is the period in which a man can be hopeless. The end of every episode is the end of the world. But the power of hoping through everything, the knowledge that the soul survives its adventures, that great inspiration comes to the middle-aged.

Life is too precious a thing to forfeit for a downward turned mouth.

Saying what you like doesn’t mean always saying what you think.

Bible enthusiasts are sophomoric dissidents.

There is a philosophical objection to that view. Man is a creature with two legs and one instinct, the instinct to be footing it; and wherever he goes he goes against the grain.

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

Men do not differ much about what things they will call evils; they differ enormously about what evils they will call excusable.

The moment the world seems full of folly, everything he saved is safe.

A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, Do it again; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough.

The man who laughs has simply not yet had the terrible news.

A society that has the will of the folly society never asks for any other thing than helplessness.

Moral issues are always terribly complex for someone without principles.

All roads lead to the negative arithmetic of concrete facts.

The most moderate of men was he who lived, not without religion, but without religious jargon.

The madman’s mind is Bigger, expansive; and that is the one thing to remember about the madman.

The modern revolutionist is clad in complete steel armor from head to foot; and never is called on to say ‘decency’. It admits, that it may be had. But it does not admit that any one outside itself can have anything else.

I believe what really happens in history is this: the old man is always wrong, and the young people are always wrong about what is wrong with him. The practical form it takes is this: that, while the old man may stand by some stupid custom, the young man always attacks it with some theory that turns out to be equally stupid.

How you have understood energy giantism!

The next revolution is to have prisoners really locked up.