G.K. Chesterton Quotes - Page 2

Truth must necessarily be stranger than fiction; for fiction is the creation of the human mind and therefore congenial to it.

He has come to the most dreadful conclusion a literary man can come to, the conclusion that the ordinary view is the right one. It is only the last and wildest kind of courage that can stand on a tower before ten thousand people and tell them that twice two is four.

The joke is generally in the oddest way the truth and yet not the fact.

The things said most confidently by advanced persons to crowded audiences are generally those opposite to the fact; it is actually our truisms that are untrue.

I say that a man must be certain of his morality for the simple reason that he has to suffer for it.

If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.

Nobody understands the nature of the Church, or the ringing note of the creed descending from antiquity, who does not realize that the whole world once very nearly died of broadmindedness and the brotherhood of all religions.

Science must not impose any philosophy, any more than the telephone must tell us what to say.

He must not merely cling to life, for then he will be a coward, and will not escape. He must not merely wait for death, for then he will be a suicide, and will not escape. He must seek his life in a spirit of furious indifference to it.

...even nursery tales only echo an almost pre-natal leap of interest and amazement. These tales say that apples were golden only to refresh the forgotten moment when we found that they were green. They make rivers run with wine only to make us remember, for one wild moment, that they run with water.

...the fundamental things in a man are not the things he explains, but rather the things he forgets to explain.

Humor can get in under the door while seriousness is still fumbling at the handle.

There is only one thing which is generally safe from plagiarism - self-denial.

There are two ways to get enough. One is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less.

Happiness is not only a hope, but also in some strange manner a memory ... we are all kings in exile.

Romance is the deepest thing in life. It is deeper than reality.

The man who kills a man kills a man.
The man who kills himself kills all men.
As far as he is concerned, he wipes out the world.

We fear men so much, because we fear God so little. One fear cures another. When man's terror scares you, turn your thoughts to the wrath of God.

For when we cease to worship God, we do not worship nothing, we worship anything.

If I can put one touch of rosy sunset into the life of any man or woman, I shall feel that I have worked with God.