G. K. Chesterton
English writer and Christian apologist (1874 to 1936); author of Orthodoxy.
G. K. Chesterton did not write this page. ppll compiled it from their own words, each linked to the source. Is this you? · Report a mistake
What they believe
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Social reform should start from a picture of the good society, not a catalogue of ills
The only way to discuss the social evil is to get at once to the social ideal.
gutenberg.orgSaid c. 1910This on korrents
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Imagination does not breed insanity; reason does
Imagination does not breed insanity. Exactly what does breed insanity is reason. Poets do not go mad; but chess-players do.
gutenberg.orgSaid c. 1908This on korrents
The bold line is korrents’ wording; the quote is theirs. These 2: what they wrote before what they said aloud, one per source, newest first.
Beliefs
Korrents What they believe 59 beliefs — each backed by an exact quote.
Each is a — compiled by korrents.com, not by them: the one-line wordings are korrents', the quotes are theirs.
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Social reform should start from a picture of the good society, not a catalogue of ills
The only way to discuss the social evil is to get at once to the social ideal.
What's Wrong with the World (1910) Said c. 1910
The Christian ideal was not tried and found wanting; it was found difficult and left untried
The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.
What's Wrong with the World (1910) Said c. 1910
Property is the ordinary person’s art: everyone should have something to shape as their own
Property is merely the art of the democracy. It means that every man should have something that he can shape in his own image, as he is shaped in the image of heaven.
What's Wrong with the World (1910) Said c. 1910
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Great capitalists are enemies of property, not its defenders
One would think, to hear people talk, that the Rothchilds and the Rockefellers were on the side of property. But obviously they are the enemies of property; because they are enemies of their own limitations.
What's Wrong with the World (1910) Said c. 1910
The home is older than law and stands outside the State
It may be said that this institution of the home is the one anarchist institution. That is to say, it is older than law, and stands outside the State.
What's Wrong with the World (1910) Said c. 1910
The point of marriage is to survive the moment incompatibility becomes undeniable
The whole aim of marriage is to fight through and survive the instant when incompatibility becomes unquestionable. For a man and a woman, as such, are incompatible.
What's Wrong with the World (1910) Said c. 1910
For a working man the home is the one free place in a world of rules
For a plain, hard-working man the home is not the one tame place in the world of adventure. It is the one wild place in the world of rules and set tasks.
What's Wrong with the World (1910) Said c. 1910
The English upper classes kept their power by always siding with progress
The simple key to the power of our upper classes is this: that they have always kept carefully on the side of what is called Progress.
What's Wrong with the World (1910) Said c. 1910
Widely spread private property, one house per family, is what people really want
The idea of private property universal but private, the idea of families free but still families, of domesticity democratic but still domestic, of one man one house—this remains the real vision and magnet of mankind.
What's Wrong with the World (1910) Said c. 1910
Imperialism is an attempt to dominate a sham Europe instead of sharing the real one
It is the attempt of a European country to create a kind of sham Europe which it can dominate, instead of the real Europe, which it can only share. It is a love of living with one’s inferiors.
What's Wrong with the World (1910) Said c. 1910
Democracy’s one real enemy may be civilization itself
Perhaps the truth can be put most pointedly thus: that democracy has one real enemy, and that is civilization.
What's Wrong with the World (1910) Said c. 1910
The working objection to women’s suffrage is that most women do not agree with it
The working objection to the Suffragette philosophy is simply that overmastering millions of women do not agree with it.
What's Wrong with the World (1910) Said c. 1910
Raising one’s own children is no smaller a career than teaching other people’s
How can it be a large career to tell other people’s children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one’s own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone?
What's Wrong with the World (1910) Said c. 1910
Unless the parents are saved, the children cannot be saved
Now I am concerned, first and last, to maintain that unless you can save the fathers, you cannot save the children; that at present we cannot save others, for we cannot save ourselves.
What's Wrong with the World (1910) Said c. 1910
Education means being sure enough of something to dare to tell it to a child
That is the one eternal education; to be sure enough that something is true that you dare to tell it to a child.
What's Wrong with the World (1910) Said c. 1910
State schools for the poor work against parents and impose the customs of the rich minority
In the lower classes the school master does not work for the parent, but against the parent. Modern education means handing down the customs of the minority, and rooting out the customs of the majority.
What's Wrong with the World (1910) Said c. 1910
Saving private property now requires distributing it as sweepingly as a revolution would
We can now only avoid Socialism by a change as vast as Socialism. If we are to save property, we must distribute property, almost as sternly and sweepingly as did the French Revolution.
What's Wrong with the World (1910) Said c. 1910
Lice in the slums show the slums are wrong, not that poor girls’ hair should be cut
It never seems to strike these people that the lesson of lice in the slums is the wrongness of slums, not the wrongness of hair.
What's Wrong with the World (1910) Said c. 1910
Socialism’s fault is that it would leave commerce essentially unchanged
I do not object to Socialism because it will revolutionize our commerce, but because it will leave it so horribly the same.
What's Wrong with the World (1910) Said c. 1910
Imagination does not breed insanity; reason does
Imagination does not breed insanity. Exactly what does breed insanity is reason. Poets do not go mad; but chess-players do.
Orthodoxy (1908) Said c. 1908
The madman has lost everything except his reason
The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason.
Orthodoxy (1908) Said c. 1908
Mysticism keeps people sane, and destroying mystery creates morbidity
Mysticism keeps men sane. As long as you have mystery you have health; when you destroy mystery you create morbidity. The ordinary man has always been sane because the ordinary man has always been a mystic.
Orthodoxy (1908) Said c. 1908
Modern humility is misplaced: it has moved from ambition to conviction
But what we suffer from to-day is humility in the wrong place. Modesty has moved from the organ of ambition. Modesty has settled upon the organ of conviction; where it was never meant to be.
Orthodoxy (1908) Said c. 1908
The only thought that ought to be stopped is the thought that stops thought
There is a thought that stops thought. That is the only thought that ought to be stopped. That is the ultimate evil against which all religious authority was aimed.
Orthodoxy (1908) Said c. 1908
Tradition is an extension of the vote to our ancestors
Tradition may be defined as an extension of the franchise. Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors.
Orthodoxy (1908) Said c. 1908
The most important things, like marriage, child-rearing and law, must be left to ordinary people
In short, the democratic faith is this: that the most terribly important things must be left to ordinary men themselves—the mating of the sexes, the rearing of the young, the laws of the state. This is democracy; and in this I have always believed.
Orthodoxy (1908) Said c. 1908
Adults are too weak to enjoy repetition, though God perhaps is not
For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony.
Orthodoxy (1908) Said c. 1908
Accepting the universe is a matter of loyalty like patriotism, not optimism
My acceptance of the universe is not optimism, it is more like patriotism. It is a matter of primary loyalty.
Orthodoxy (1908) Said c. 1908
When you love something, its sadness is a reason to love it more
The point is not that this world is too sad to love or too glad not to love; the point is that when you do love a thing, its gladness is a reason for loving it, and its sadness a reason for loving it more.
Orthodoxy (1908) Said c. 1908
Cities became great because people loved them first, not the reverse
People first paid honour to a spot and afterwards gained glory for it. Men did not love Rome because she was great. She was great because they had loved her.
Orthodoxy (1908) Said c. 1908
Worshipping the god within is the worst kind of religion
Of all conceivable forms of enlightenment the worst is what these people call the Inner Light. Of all horrible religions the most horrible is the worship of the god within.
Orthodoxy (1908) Said c. 1908
Courage is a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die
Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die.
Orthodoxy (1908) Said c. 1908
Nothing has ever been as perilous or as exciting as orthodoxy
There never was anything so perilous or so exciting as orthodoxy. It was sanity: and to be sane is more dramatic than to be mad.
Orthodoxy (1908) Said c. 1908
Progress should change the world to fit a vision, not keep changing the vision
Progress should mean that we are always changing the world to suit the vision. Progress does mean (just now) that we are always changing the vision.
Orthodoxy (1908) Said c. 1908
Leaving a thing alone exposes it to change, so keeping it as it was takes constant renewal
If you leave a thing alone you leave it to a torrent of change. If you leave a white post alone it will soon be a black post. If you particularly want it to be white you must be always painting it again; that is, you must be always having a revolution. Briefly, if you want the old white post you must have a new white post.
Orthodoxy (1908) Said c. 1908
Believers in miracles accept them on evidence, while disbelievers deny them on doctrine
The believers in miracles accept them (rightly or wrongly) because they have evidence for them. The disbelievers in miracles deny them (rightly or wrongly) because they have a doctrine against them.
Orthodoxy (1908) Said c. 1908
Joy is the great hidden secret of Christianity, where for pagans it was a small public thing
Joy, which was the small publicity of the pagan, is the gigantic secret of the Christian.
Orthodoxy (1908) Said c. 1908
Buddhism and Christianity probably contradict each other more flatly than any two institutions
But as to what is the way out, I do not think that there are two institutions in the universe which contradict each other so flatly as Buddhism and Christianity.
Orthodoxy (1908) Said c. 1908
Modern philosophies bind and fetter, while Christianity separates and sets free
We come back to the same tireless note touching the nature of Christianity; all modern philosophies are chains which connect and fetter; Christianity is a sword which separates and sets free.
Orthodoxy (1908) Said c. 1908
A person's view of the universe is the most practical and important thing about them
But there are some people, nevertheless—and I am one of them—who think that the most practical and important thing about a man is still his view of the universe.
Heretics (1905) Said c. 1905
Someone always weighing which side is strong will never believe in anything long enough to make it succeed
A man who is perpetually thinking of whether this race or that race is strong, of whether this cause or that cause is promising, is the man who will never believe in anything long enough to make it succeed.
Heretics (1905) Said c. 1905
We admire things for reasons but love them without reasons
He admires England, but he does not love her; for we admire things with reasons, but love them without reasons.
Heretics (1905) Said c. 1905
Having no definite convictions does not make the mind freer; a believer is readier and wittier
The truth is, that it is quite an error to suppose that absence of definite convictions gives the mind freedom and agility. A man who believes something is ready and witty, because he has all his weapons about him.
Heretics (1905) Said c. 1905
Utopias assume away humanity's greatest difficulty and solve only the smaller ones
And the weakness of all Utopias is this, that they take the greatest difficulty of man and assume it to be overcome, and then give an elaborate account of the overcoming of the smaller ones.
Heretics (1905) Said c. 1905
Ritual is older, simpler and wilder than thought
Ritual is really much older than thought; it is much simpler and much wilder than thought.
Heretics (1905) Said c. 1905
The one truly dangerous and immoral way to drink wine is as a medicine
The one genuinely dangerous and immoral way of drinking wine is to drink it as a medicine.
Heretics (1905) Said c. 1905
The popular press offends by being too tame, not by being too sensational
I am speaking in no affected contrariety, but in the simplicity of a genuine personal impression, when I say that this journalism offends as being not sensational or violent enough. The real vice is not that it is startling, but that it is quite insupportably tame.
Heretics (1905) Said c. 1905
Pride is a weakness that dries up laughter, wonder, chivalry and energy
Pride is a weakness in the character; it dries up laughter, it dries up wonder, it dries up chivalry and energy.
Heretics (1905) Said c. 1905
Advocates of the simple life make us simple in trivial things but complex in important ones
This complaint against them stands, that they would make us simple in the unimportant things, but complex in the important things.
Heretics (1905) Said c. 1905
Doing justice to a microbe needs detachment from being human, but doing justice to people does not
It is necessary to cease to be a man in order to do justice to a microbe; it is not necessary to cease to be a man in order to do justice to men.
Heretics (1905) Said c. 1905
The fullest enjoyment comes from reducing the ego to zero, not extending it
Now, the psychological discovery is merely this, that whereas it had been supposed that the fullest possible enjoyment is to be found by extending our ego to infinity, the truth is that the fullest possible enjoyment is to be found by reducing our ego to zero.
Heretics (1905) Said c. 1905
The theory of races is the oddest way pseudo-science has come to the rescue of the rich
And of all the forms in which science, or pseudo-science, has come to the rescue of the rich and stupid, there is none so singular as the singular invention of the theory of races.
Heretics (1905) Said c. 1905
A person who lives in a small community lives in a much larger world
The man who lives in a small community lives in a much larger world. He knows much more of the fierce varieties and uncompromising divergences of men.
Heretics (1905) Said c. 1905
In one sense bad literature is more valuable to read than good literature
In one sense, at any rate, it is more valuable to read bad literature than good literature. Good literature may tell us the mind of one man; but bad literature may tell us the mind of many men.
Heretics (1905) Said c. 1905
In this sense, fun and seriousness have nothing to do with each other
The truth is, as I have said, that in this sense the two qualities of fun and seriousness have nothing whatever to do with each other, they are no more comparable than black and triangular.
Heretics (1905) Said c. 1905
Calling America or New Zealand young nations is a trick of words
The whole thing is a trick of words. America is not young, New Zealand is not new.
Heretics (1905) Said c. 1905
Democracy rests on reverence for the common man, not on pity for him
Democracy is not founded on pity for the common man; democracy is founded on reverence for the common man, or, if you will, even on fear of him.
Heretics (1905) Said c. 1905
Truths turn into dogmas the moment they are disputed
Truths turn into dogmas the instant that they are disputed. Thus every man who utters a doubt defines a religion.
Heretics (1905) Said c. 1905
Fires will one day be kindled to defend the claim that two and two make four
Fires will be kindled to testify that two and two make four. Swords will be drawn to prove that leaves are green in summer.
Heretics (1905) Said c. 1905
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