G. K. Chesterton: Quotes about men

G. K. Chesterton was English mystery novelist and Christian apologist. Explore interesting quotes on men.
G. K. Chesterton: 458 quotes19 likes

“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.”

G. K. Chesterton

Illustrated London News (29 April 1922)

“Men always talk about the most important things to total strangers. It is because in the total stranger we perceive man himself; the image of God is not disguised by resemblances to an uncle or doubts of the wisdom of a moustache.”

G. K. Chesterton book The Club of Queer Trades

The Club of Queer Trades http://books.google.com/books?id=mjcdk4InFzoC&amp;q=&amp;quot;Men+always+talk+about+the+most+important+things+to+total+strangers+it+is+because+in+the+total+stranger+we+perceive+man+himself+the+image+of+God+is+not+disguised+by+resemblances+to+an+uncle+or+doubts+of+the+wisdom+of+a+moustache&amp;quot;&amp;pg=PT93#v=onepage (1905) Ch. 5 &quot;The Noticeable Conduct of Professor Chadd&quot;<br><br>book The Club of Queer Trades

“When learned men begin to use their reason, then I generally discover that they haven't got any.”

G. K. Chesterton

The Illustrated London News (7 November 1908)

“Men may keep a sort of level of good, but no man has ever been able to keep on one level of evil.”

G. K. Chesterton book The Innocence of Father Brown

The Innocence of Father Brown (1911) The Flying Stars
The Father Brown Mystery Series (1910 - 1927)

“Neither reason nor faith will ever die; for men would die if deprived of either. The wildest mystic uses his reason at some stage; if it be only by reasoning against reason. The most incisive sceptic has dogmas of his own; though when he is a very incisive sceptic, he has often forgotten what they are. Faith and reason are in this sense co-eternal; but as the words are popularly used, as loose labels for particular periods, the one is now almost as remote as the other. What was called the Age of Reason has vanished as completely as what are called the Ages of Faith.”

G. K. Chesterton

Anti-Religious Thought In The Eighteenth Century http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/anti_religious_thought.txt; first published in &quot;An Outline of Christianity : The Story of our Civilization&quot;, Vol. IV, Christianity and Modern Thought (1926)

“It is only great men who take up a great space by not being there.”

G. K. Chesterton

Lecture at the University of Notre Dame (13 October 1930), as quoted in notes taken by Professor Richard Baker, of the University of Dayton, and published in The Chesterton Review (Winter/Spring 1977)

“Every one of the great revolutionists, from Isaiah to Shelley, have been optimists. They have been indignant, not about the badness of existence, but about the slowness of men in realizing its goodness.”

G. K. Chesterton book The Defendant

"Introduction"
The Defendant (1901)

“Many clever men like you have trusted to civilization. Many clever Babylonians, many clever Egyptians, many clever men at the end of Rome. Can you tell me, in a world that is flagrant with the failures of civilisation, what there is particularly immortal about yours?”

G. K. Chesterton book The Napoleon of Notting Hill

Book I, Chapter II: "The Man in Green"
The Napoleon of Notting Hill (1904)

“We are then able to answer in some manner the question, "Why have we no great men?" We have no great men chiefly because we are always looking for them. We are connoisseurs of greatness, and connoisseurs can never be great; we are fastidious, that is, we are small. When Diogenes went about with a lantern looking for an honest man, I am afraid he had very little time to be honest himself. And when anybody goes about on his hands and knees looking for a great man to worship, he is making sure that one man at any rate shall not be great.”

G. K. Chesterton Charles Dickens

Source: Charles Dickens (1906), Ch 1 : "The Dickens Period"

“One of the actual and certain consequences of the idea that all men are equal is immediately to produce very great men.”

G. K. Chesterton Charles Dickens

Source: Charles Dickens (1906), Ch 1 : "The Dickens Period"

“For religion all men are equal, as all pennies are equal, because the only value in any of them is that they bear the image of the King.... It has often been said, very truly, that religion is the thing that makes the ordinary man feel extraordinary; it is an equally important truth that religion is the thing that makes the extraordinary man feel ordinary.”

G. K. Chesterton Charles Dickens

Ch 1 : "The Dickens Period"
Charles Dickens (1906)