G. K. Chesterton: Trending quotes (page 7)

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G. K. Chesterton: 458   quotes 19   likes

“It is largely because the free-thinkers, as a school, have hardly made up their minds whether they want to be more optimist or more pessimist than Christianity that their small but sincere movement has failed.”

G. K. Chesterton

Source: The Victorian Age in Literature (1913), Ch. II: The Great Victorian Novelists (p. 73)

School , Sincerity

“The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people.”

G. K. Chesterton

Illustrated London News (16 July 1910)

Funny , Love , People

“When people impute special vices to the Christian Church, they seem entirely to forget that the world (which is the only other thing there is) has these vices much more. The Church has been cruel; but the world has been much more cruel. The Church has plotted; but the world has plotted much more. The Church has been superstitious; but it has never been so superstitious as the world is when left to itself.”

G. K. Chesterton

The Illustrated London News (14 December 1907)

People , World , Forgetting

“Impartiality is a pompous name for indifference, which is an elegant name for ignorance.”

G. K. Chesterton

The Speaker (15 December 1900)

Indifference

“Briefly, you can only find truth with logic if you have already found truth without it.”

G. K. Chesterton

Daily News (25 February 1905)

Truth

“Odd, isn't it, that a thief and a vagabond should repent, when so many who are rich and secure remain hard and frivolous, and without fruit for God or man?”

G. K. Chesterton book The Innocence of Father Brown

The Innocence of Father Brown (1911) The Queer Feet
The Father Brown Mystery Series (1910 - 1927)

God

“You have no business to be an unbeliever. You ought to stand for all the things these stupid people call superstitions. Come now, don't you think there's a lot in those old wives' tales about luck and charms and so on, silver bullets included? What do you say about them as a Catholic?'
'I say I'm an agnostic,' replied Father Brown, smiling.
'Nonsense,' said Aylmer impatiently. 'It's your business to believe things.'
'Well, I do believe some things, of course,' conceded Father Brown; 'and therefore, of course, I don't believe other things.'.”

G. K. Chesterton

The Dagger with Wings (1926)

People , Stupidity , Smile , Business

“He is only a very shallow critic who cannot see an eternal rebel in the heart of the Conservative.”

G. K. Chesterton

Varied Types (1903)

Heart

“About sex especially men are born unbalanced; we might almost say men are born mad. They scarcely reach sanity till they reach sanctity.”

G. K. Chesterton book The Everlasting Man

The Everlasting Man (1925)

Men , Sex , Madness

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

G. K. Chesterton

A popular internet misattribution.[citation needed] A number of variants of the "rain on your parade" theme appear, with different sources
Misattributed

“The whole difference between construction and creation is exactly this: that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists, as the mother can love the unborn child.”

G. K. Chesterton

Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens Chapter III "Pickwick Papers" (1911)

Love

“For we that fight till the world is free,
We are not easy in victory:
We have known each other too long, my brother,
And fought each other, the world and we.”

G. K. Chesterton

A Song of Defeat (1910)

World , Victory , Fight

“A mystic is a man who separates heaven and earth even if he enjoys them both.”

G. K. Chesterton book William Blake

"William Blake" (1920)

“Reason is always a kind of brute force; those who appeal to the head rather than the heart, however pallid and polite, are necessarily men of violence. We speak of 'touching' a man's heart, but we can do nothing to his head but hit it.”

G. K. Chesterton

Twelve Types (1903) Charles II

Men , Heart

“A man must love a thing very much if he not only practices it without any hope of fame and money, but even practices it without any hope of doing it well.”

G. K. Chesterton

As quoted in Mackay's The Harvest of a Quiet Eye, A Selection of Scientific Quotations (1977), p. 34

Love , Money , Hope

“Never invoke the gods unless you really want them to appear. It annoys them very much.”

G. K. Chesterton

As quoted in "The Sleep of Trees" (1980) by Jane Yolen, in Tales of Wonder (1983) by Jane Yolen, p. 33

God , Appearance

“A man must be orthodox upon most things, or he will never even have time to preach his own heresy.”

G. K. Chesterton

George Bernard Shaw (1909)

Time

“The most incredible thing about miracles is that they happen.”

G. K. Chesterton book The Innocence of Father Brown

The Innocence of Father Brown (1911) The Blue Cross
The Father Brown Mystery Series (1910 - 1927)

“The new community which the capitalists are now constructing will be a very complete and absolute community; and one which will tolerate nothing really independent of itself.”

G. K. Chesterton

Source: Utopia of Usurers (1917), pp. 33-34

Communication

“All government is an ugly necessity.”

G. K. Chesterton

A Short History of England (1917)