Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by G. K. Chesterton (English Journalist)

Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936) was a prolific English essayist, novelist, journalist, and critic. He devoted his extraordinary intellect and creative power to the reform of the English government and society.

Chesterton was born in London. His career began when he verbalized his first story to his aunt Rose at the age of three. He experimented in the occult as a young man, returned to the Church of England, and converted to Catholicism later in life. His thoughts on religion influenced much of his writing.

Chesterton was also amazingly prolific—he wrote fast and barely edited what he wrote. He considered himself largely a journalist, and he wrote 4,000 newspaper essays; he also wrote some 80 books (covering fiction, criticism, literary biography, and theology) as well as several hundred poems, 200 short stories, and many plays. He made his points with wit and paradox, his vast body of work contains a plethora of quotable material.

Chesterton is best known for his stories about Father Brown, a crime-solving Roman Catholic priest who seems awkward and inept—he regularly misplaces his umbrella, falls asleep during police interrogations—but knows more about crime than the criminals. Chesterton got the idea from observing Catholic priests, who listen to confessions all day long but know more about degradation and corruption than do anyone else in society.

Chesterton novels include The Napoleon of Notting Hill (1904,) a political satire that many readers consider his most entertaining work. The Man Who Was Thursday (1908,) widely considered his best fictional work, is presented as a detective story but its surrealistic turns and unworldly characters turn it into a metaphysical thriller of Christian allegory.

Chesterton’s two greatest Christian apologetics were Orthodoxy (1908) and The Everlasting Man (1925;) the latter contributed to the British intellectual C. S. Lewis’s conversion from atheism to Christianity.

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by G. K. Chesterton

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.
—G. K. Chesterton
Topics: Americans, America, Ideals

If prosperity is regarded as the reward of virtue, it will be regarded as the symptom of virtue.
—G. K. Chesterton
Topics: Wealth, Prosperity

Dogma does not mean the absence of thought, but the end of thought.
—G. K. Chesterton
Topics: Beliefs

One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak.
—G. K. Chesterton
Topics: Adversity

The most dangerous criminal now is the entirely lawless modern philosopher. Compared to him, burglars and bigamists are essentially moral men.
—G. K. Chesterton
Topics: Philosophy

White is not a mere absence of color; it is a shining and affirmative thing, as fierce as red, as definite as black. God paints in many colors; but He never paints so gorgeously, I had almost said so gaudily, as when He paints in white.
—G. K. Chesterton
Topics: Money

Life exists for the love of music or beautiful things.
—G. K. Chesterton
Topics: Goals, Aspirations

Woe unto them that are tired of everything, for everything will certainly be tired of them.
—G. K. Chesterton
Topics: Habits

To love means loving the unlovable. To forgive means pardoning the unpardonable. Faith means believing the unbelievable. Hope means hoping when everything seems hopeless.
—G. K. Chesterton
Topics: Forgiveness, Feelings, Hope

It is not funny that anything else should fall down; only that a man should fall down. Why do we laugh? Because it is a gravely religious matter: it is the Fall of Man. Only man can be absurd: for only man can be dignified.
—G. K. Chesterton

Nothing is poetical if plain daylight is not poetical; and no monster should amaze us if the normal man does not amaze.
—G. K. Chesterton

Ritual will always mean throwing away something; destroying our corn or wine upon the altar of our Gods.
—G. K. Chesterton

We are all in the same boat in a stormy sea, and we owe each other a terrible loyalty.
—G. K. Chesterton
Topics: Loyalty

Americans are a backward people, with all the very real virtues of a backward people; the patriarchal simplicity and human dignity of a democracy, and a respect for labor uncorrupted by cynicism.
—G. K. Chesterton
Topics: America

Art consists of limitation. The most beautiful part of every picture is the frame.
—G. K. Chesterton
Topics: Art, Arts, Artists, Part of The Whole

I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.
—G. K. Chesterton
Topics: Gratitude

We make our friends; we make our enemies; but God makes our next-door neighbor.
—G. K. Chesterton
Topics: Neighbors, Enemy

Love means to love that which is unlovable, or it is no virtue at all.
—G. K. Chesterton
Topics: Equality, Love, Virtue, Now

If there was not God, there would be no atheists.
—G. K. Chesterton
Topics: God

The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all.
—G. K. Chesterton
Topics: Wealth, Hair, Vanity, Riches, Age

Truth must necessarily be stranger than fiction, for fiction is the creation of the human mind and therefore congenial to it.
—G. K. Chesterton
Topics: Truth

Being “contented” ought to mean in English, as it does in French, being pleased. Being content with an attic ought not to mean being unable to move from it and resigned to living in it; it ought to mean appreciating all there is in such a position.
—G. K. Chesterton
Topics: Contentment

There are no uninteresting things, there are only uninterested people.
—G. K. Chesterton
Topics: Curiosity

A new morality has burst upon us with some violence in connection with the problem of strong drink; and enthusiasts in the matter range from the man who is violently thrown out at 12.30, to the lady who smashes American bars with an axe. In these discussions it is almost always felt that one very wise and moderate position is to say that wine or such stuff should only be drunk as a medicine. With this I should venture to disagree with a peculiar ferocity. The one genuinely dangerous and immoral way of drinking wine is to drink it as a medicine. And for this reason: If a man drinks wine in order to obtain pleasure, he is trying to obtain something exceptional; something he does not expect every hour of the day; something which, unless he is a little insane, he will not try to get every hour of the day. But if a man drinks wine in order to obtain health, he is trying to get something natural; something, that is, that he ought not to be without; something that he may find it difficult to reconcile himself to being without. The man may not be seduced who has seen the ecstasy of being ecstatic; it is more dazzling to catch a glimpse of the ecstasy of being ordinary.
—G. K. Chesterton
Topics: Drinking

The golden age only comes to men when they have forgotten gold.
—G. K. Chesterton
Topics: Gold

Human anger is a higher thing than what is called divine discontent. For you must be angry with something; but you can be discontented with everything.
—G. K. Chesterton
Topics: Anger

Those thinkers who cannot believe in any gods often assert that the love of humanity would be in itself sufficient for them; and so, perhaps, it would, if they had it.
—G. K. Chesterton
Topics: God, Atheism

Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it.
—G. K. Chesterton
Topics: Property, Possessions

The most valuable book we can read, about countries we have visited, is that which recalls to us something that we did notice, but did not notice that we noticed.
—G. K. Chesterton
Topics: Books

But we are the people of England; and we have not spoken yet. Smile at us, pay us, pass us. But do not quite forget.
—G. K. Chesterton
Topics: People

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