~ Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes ~

[MysteRy]

Forgiving means to pardon the unpardonable faith means believing the unbelievable and hoping means to hope when things are hopeless.

[MysteRy]

Merely having an open mind is nothing. The object of opening the mind as of opening the mouth is to shut it again on something solid.

[MysteRy]

There is nothing the matter with Americans except their ideals. The real American is all right; it is the ideal American who is all wrong.

[MysteRy]

No man who worships education has got the best out of education... Without a gentle contempt for education no man's education is complete.

[MysteRy]

When a politician is in opposition he is an expert on the means to some end; and when he is in office he is an expert on the obstacles to it.

[MysteRy]

The trouble with always trying to preserve the health of the body is that it is so difficult to do without destroying the health of the mind.

[MysteRy]

'My country right or wrong' is a thing no patriot would ever think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying 'My mother drunk or sober.'

[MysteRy]

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

[MysteRy]

Most modern freedom is at root fear. It is not so much that we are too bold to endure rules; it is rather that we are too timid to endure responsibilities.

[MysteRy]

All science even the divine science is a sublime detective story. Only it is not set to detect why a man is dead; but the darker secret of why he is alive.

[MysteRy]

If my children wake up on Christmas morning and have someone to thank for putting candy in their stocking have I no one to thank for putting two feet in mine?

[MysteRy]

The real argument against aristocracy is that it always means the rule of the ignorant. For the most dangerous of all forms of ignorance is ignorance of work.

[MysteRy]

Man does not live by soap alone; and hygiene or even health is not much good unless you can take a healthy view of it or better still feel a healthy indifference to it.

[MysteRy]

It matters very little whether a man is discontented in the name of pessimism or progress if his discontent does in fact paralyse his power of appreciating what he has got.

[MysteRy]

Happy is he who still loves something he loved in the nursery: He has not been broken in two by time; he is not two men but one and he has saved not only his soul but his life.