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G. K. Chesterton Quotes
1874–1936 England
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (29 May 1874 – 14 June 1936) was a British writer whose prolific and diverse output included works of philosophy, ontology, poetry, play writing, journalism, public lecturing and debating, literary and art criticism, biography, Christian apologetics (particularly for Catholicism), and fiction, including fantasy and detective fiction. He has been called the "prince of paradox".
England Autobiographers Conservatives Critics Essayists Also known as: Chesterton, Chesterton, G. K., Chesterton, Gilbert Keith, G K Chesterton, G.K. Chesterton, GK Chesterton
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299 quotes
The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.
What's Wrong With The World (1910)
But I said that I opened my intellect as I opened my mouth, in order to shut it again on something solid.
Tremendous Trifles (1909)
In a world where everything is ridiculous, nothing can be ridiculed. You cannot unmask a mask.
There is a thought that stops thought. That is the only thought that ought to be stopped.
Orthodoxy (1908)
Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die.
Optimism is morbid. It is if possible even more morbid than pessimism.
The Case for the Ephemeral. It is incomprehensible to me that any thinker can calmly call himself a modernist; he might as well call himself a Thursdayite.
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.
What's Wrong with the World (1910)
We know each other, these slaves and we.
Poems (1917)
The person who is really in revolt is the optimist, who generally lives and dies in a desperate and suicidal effort to persuade all the other people how good they are.
The Defendant (1901)
The mind moves by instincts, associations and premonitions and not by fixed dates or completed processes. Action and reaction will occur simultaneously: or the cause actually be found after the effect.
The Victorian Age in Literature (1913)
One of his hobbies was to wait for the American Shakespeare — a hobby more patient than angling.
The gallows in my garden, people say,
Poems (1917)
There is a great deal of difference between the eager man who wants to read a book, and the tired man who wants a book to read.
Charles Dickens (1906)
To be in the weakest camp is to be in the strongest school.
I cannot understand the people who take literature seriously; but I can love them, and I do. Out of my love I warn them to keep clear of this book.
All Things Considered (1908)
Truths turn into dogmas the moment they are disputed.
There is something to be said for every error; but, whatever may be said for it, the most important thing to be said about it is that it is erroneous.
It is a quaint comment on the notion that the English are practical and the French merely visionary, that we were rebels in arts while they were rebels in arms.
The Victorian Age in Literature (1913)
Either criticism is no good at all (a very defensible position) or else criticism means saying about an author the very things that would have made him jump out of his boots.
Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens (1911)
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