Quotes By Gilbert K. Chesterton

There is no such thing on earth as an uninteresting subject; the only thing that can exist is an uninterested person.

What affects men sharply about a foreign nation is not so much finding or not finding familiar things; it is rather not finding them in the familiar place.

Artistic temperament is the disease that afflicts amateurs.

The whole order of things is as outrageous as any miracle which could presume to violate it.

And when it rains on your parade, look up rather than down. Without the rain, there would be no rainbow.

There is a great deal of difference between an eager man who wants to read a book and the tired man who wants a book to read.

A stiff apology is a second insult... The injured party does not want to be compensated because he has been wronged; he wants to be healed because he has been hurt.

The aim of life is appreciation; there is no sense in not appreciating things; and there is no sense in having more of them if you have less appreciation of them.

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

The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one's own country as a foreign land.

Let your religion be less of a theory and more of a love affair.

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

If I had only one sermon to preach it would be a sermon against pride.

The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.

If I can put one touch of rosy sunset into the life of any man or woman, I shall feel that I have worked with God.

Experience which was once claimed by the aged is now claimed exclusively by the young.

The present condition of fame is merely fashion.

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

Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity.

Men feel that cruelty to the poor is a kind of cruelty to animals. They never feel that it is an injustice to equals; nay it is treachery to comrades.

The man who throws a bomb is an artist, because he prefers a great moment to everything.

The word "good" has many meanings. For example, if a man were to shoot his grandmother at a range of five hundred yards, I should call him a good shot, but not necessarily a good man.

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

Coincidences are spiritual puns.

Marriage is an adventure, like going to war.

The fatal metaphor of progress, which means leaving things behind us, has utterly obscured the real idea of growth, which means leaving things inside us.

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

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

I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite.

In matters of truth the fact that you don't want to publish something is, nine times out of ten, a proof that you ought to publish it.