G. K. Chesterton quotes

G. K. Chesterton was an influential English writer, poet, and philosopher known for his wit and wisdom. He wrote numerous essays, novels, and poems that continue to captivate readers around the world. Chesterton's most famous works include "The Man Who Was Thursday" and the "Father Brown" detective series. His unique blend of satire and social commentary makes him a timeless literary figure. Discover more about G. K. Chesterton's profound insights and timeless works that continue to inspire and delight readers today.

The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.

- G. K. Chesterton

Let a man walk ten miles steadily on a hot summer’s day along a dusty English road, and he will soon discover why beer was invented.

- G. K. Chesterton

Just going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than standing in your garage makes you a car.

- G. K. Chesterton

Journalism largely consists in saying 'Lord Jones is dead' to people who never knew Lord Jones was alive.

- 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

If men will not be governed by the Ten Commandments, they shall be governed by the ten thousand commandments.

- G. K. Chesterton

Idolatry is committed, not merely by setting up false gods, but also by setting up false devils; by making men afraid of war or alcohol, or economic law, when they should be afraid of spiritual corruption and cowardice.

- G. K. Chesterton

I have little doubt that when St. George had killed the dragon he was heartily afraid of the princess.

- G. K. Chesterton

I don't deny that there should be priests to remind men that they will one day die. I only say that at certain strange epochs it is necessary to have another kind of priests, called poets, actually to remind men that they are not dead yet.

- G. K. Chesterton

I am not absentminded. It is the presence of mind that makes me unaware of everything else.

- G. K. Chesterton

I always like a dog so long as he isn't spelled backward.

- G. K. Chesterton

How quickly revolutions grow old; and, worse still, respectable.

- 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

Feminism is mixed up with a muddled idea that women are free when they serve their employers but slaves when they help their husbands.

- G. K. Chesterton

Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.

- G. K. Chesterton

Don't ever take a fence down until you know the reason it was put up.

- G. K. Chesterton

Customs are generally unselfish. Habits are nearly always selfish.

- G. K. Chesterton

Coincidences are spiritual puns.

- G. K. Chesterton

All government is an ugly necessity.

- G. K. Chesterton

A madman is not someone who has lost his reason but someone who has lost everything but his reason.

- G. K. Chesterton

The center of every man's existence is a dream. Death, disease, insanity, are merely material accidents, like toothache or a twisted ankle. That these brutal forces always besiege and often capture the citadel does not prove that they are the citadel.

- G. K. Chesterton

To complain that I could only be married once was like complaining that I had only been born once.

- G. K. Chesterton

The criminal is the creative artist; the detective only the critic.

- G. K. Chesterton

Oscar Wilde said that sunsets were not valued because we could not pay for sunsets. But Oscar Wilde was wrong; we can pay for sunsets. We can pay for them by not being Oscar Wilde.

- G. K. Chesterton

London is a riddle. Paris is an explanation.

- G. K. Chesterton

The reason angels can fly is because they take themselves lightly.

- G. K. Chesterton

As long as you have mystery you have health; when you destroy mystery you create morbidity.

- G. K. Chesterton

A detective story generally describes six living men discussing how it is that a man is dead. A modern philosophic story generally describes six dead men discussing how any man can possibly be alive.

- 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

Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.

- G. K. Chesterton