A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author. - G. K. Chesterton
If a rhinoceros were to enter this resteraunt now, there is no denying he would have great power here. But I would be the first to rise and assure him that he had no authority whatever. - G. K. Chesterton
Man seems to be capable of great virtues but not of small virtues; capable of defying his torturer but not of keeping his temper. - G. K. Chesterton
Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another. - G. K. Chesterton
The prophet and the quack are alike admired for a generation, and admired for the wrong reasons. - G. K. Chesterton
Seemingly from the dawn of man all nations have had governments; and all nations have been ashamed of them. - G. K. Chesterton
There are no wise few. Every aristocracy that has ever existed has behaved, in all essential points, exactly like a small mob. - G. K. Chesterton
The most astonishing thing about miracles is that they happen. - G. K. Chesterton
You can only find truth with logic if you have already found truth without it. - G. K. Chesterton
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. - G. K. Chesterton
I do not believe in a fate that falls on all men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that falls on them unless they act. - G. K. Chesterton
The rich are the scum of the earth in every country. - G. K. Chesterton
It isn't that they can't see the solution. It is that they can't see the problem. - G. K. Chesterton
The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits. - G. K. Chesterton
Don't ever take a fence down until you know the reason it was put up. - G. K. Chesterton
By a curious confusion, many modern critics have passed from the proposition that a masterpiece may be unpopular to the other proposition that unless it is unpopular it cannot be a masterpiece. - G. K. Chesterton
It is not bigotry to be certain we are right; but it is bigotry to be unable to imagine how we might possibly have gone wrong. - G. K. Chesterton
Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. - G. K. Chesterton
I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite. - G. K. Chesterton
Men always talk about the most important things to perfect strangers. In the perfect stranger we perceive man himself; the image of a God is not disguised by resemblances to an uncle or doubts of wisdom of a mustache. - G. K. Chesterton
The honest poor can sometimes forget poverty. The honest rich can never forget it. - G. K. Chesterton
You can never have a revolution in order to establish a democracy. You must have a democracy in order to have a revolution - G. K. Chesterton
If there were no God, there would be no Atheists. - G. K. Chesterton
He may be mad, but there's method in his madness. There nearly always is method in madness. It's what drives men mad, being methodical. - G. K. Chesterton
Every man is important is he loses his life; and every man is funny if he loses his hat and has to run after it. - G. K. Chesterton
There nearly always is a method in madness. It's what drives men mad, being methodical. - G. K. Chesterton
I believe in getting into hot water; it keeps you clean. - G. K. Chesterton
I still believe in liberalism today as much as I ever did, but, oh, there was a happy time when I believed in liberals... - G. K. Chesterton
All slang is a metaphor, and all metaphor is poetry. - G. K. Chesterton
The men who really believe in themselves are all in lunatic asylums. - G. K. Chesterton
There is no such thing on earth as an uninteresting subject; the only thing that can exist is an uninterested person. - G. K. Chesterton
The people who are the most bigoted are the people who have no convictions at all. - G. K. Chesterton
Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong deisre to live taking the form of a readiness to die. - G. K. Chesterton
Happiness is a mystery like religion, and should never be rationalized. - G. K. Chesterton
Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese. - G. K. Chesterton
For in all legends men have thought of women as sublime separately but horrible in a herd. - G. K. Chesterton
An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered. - G. K. Chesterton
Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere. - G. K. Chesterton
Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult, and not tried. - G. K. Chesterton
Journalism largely consists of saying 'Lord Jones is Dead' to people who never knew that Lord Jones was alive. - G. K. Chesterton
People in high life are hardened to the wants and distresses of mankind as surgeons are to their bodily pains. - G. K. Chesterton
"My country, right or wrong," is a thing that no patriot would think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying, "My mother, drunk or sober." - G. K. Chesterton
His horror is wild, but it is a sane horror. - G. K. Chesterton
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
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. - G. K. Chesterton
Beware of no man more than yourself; we carry our worst enemies within us. - G. K. Chesterton
Real development is not leaving things behind, as on a road, but drawing life from them, as on a root. - G. K. Chesterton
The discovery of this strange society was a curiously refreshing thing; to realize that there were ten new trades in the world was like looking at the first ship or the first plough. It made a man feel what he should feel, that he was still in the childhood of the world. - G. K. Chesterton
But a somewhat more liberal and sympathetic examination of mankind will convince us that the cross is even older than the gibbet, that voluntary suffering was before and independent of compulsory; and in short that in most important matters a man has always been free to ruin himself if he chose. - G. K. Chesterton
The poor complain that they are governed badly. The rich complain that they are governed at all. - G. K. Chesterton
A dead thing goes with the stream. Only a living thing can go against it. - G. K. Chesterton
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it. - G. K. Chesterton