Top 500 Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes (2026 Update)
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401. “There are no new ideas.”

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

402. “Earnest Freethinkers need not worry themselves so much about the persecutions of the past. Before the Liberal idea is dead or triumphant we shall see wars and persecutions the like of which the world has never seen.”

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

403. “Poets do not go mad, but chess players do.”

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

404. “The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children’s games from the beginning, and will probably do it till the end, which is a nuisance for the few people who grow up.”

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

405. “No sceptical philosopher can ask any questions that may not equally be asked by a tired child on a hot afternoon.”

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

406. “The primary paradox of Christianity is that the ordinary condition of man is not his sane or sensible condition; that the normal itself is an abnormality.”

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

407. “All my authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

408. “I still think sincere pessimism the unpardonable sin.”

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

409. “A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.”

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

Featured in: Book Quotes, Reading Quotes

410. “The true object of all human life is play. Earth is a task garden; heaven is a playground.”

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

Featured in: Fun Quotes

411. “We are like the penny, because we have the image of the king stamped on us, the divine king.”

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

412. “What we all dread most is a maze with no centre.”

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

413. “The doctrine of human equality reposes on this: that there is no man really clever who has not found that he is stupid.”

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

414. “Stick to the man who looks out of the window and tries to understand the world. Keep clear of the man who looks in at the window and tries to understand you.”

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

415. “One can hardly think too little of one’s self. One can hardly think too much of one’s soul.”

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

416. “What life and death may be to a turkey is not my business; but the soul of Scrooge and the body of Cratchit are my business.”

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

417. “A man cannot deserve adventures; he cannot earn dragons and hippogriffs.”

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

418. “The Special mark of the modern world is not that it is skeptical, but that it is dogmatic without knowing it. It says, in mockery of old devotees, that they believed without knowing why they believed. But the moderns believe without knowing what they believe – and without even knowing that they do believe it. Their freedom consists in first freely assuming a creed, and then freely forgetting that they are assuming it.”

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

419. “Adventure is the champagne of life.”

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

420. “The real objection to modernism is simply that it is a form of snobbishness. It is an attempt to crush a rational opponent not by reason, but by some mystery of superiority, by hinting that one is specially up to date or particularly “in the know.”

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

421. “Freedom of speech means practically, in our modern civilisation, that we must only talk about unimportant things. We must not talk about religion, for that is illiberal; we must not talk about bread and cheese, for that is talking shop; we must not talk about death, for that is depressing; we must not talk about birth, for that is indelicate. It.”

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

422. “For cleverness kills wisdom; that is one of the few sad and certain things.”

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

423. “It is very foolish of a man to be frightened of a skeleton, for Nature has put an insurmountable obstacle against running away from it.”

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

424. “A great man is not a man so strong that he feels less than other men; he is a man so strong that he feels more.”

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

Featured in: Strong Quotes

425. “There are two kinds of people in the world, the conscious dogmatists and the unconscious dogmatists. I have always found myself that the unconscious dogmatists were by far the most dogmatic.”

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

426. “The answer to anyone who talks about the surplus population is to ask him whether he is the surplus population ; or if he is not, how he knows he is not.”

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

427. “The moment you step into the world of facts, you step into a world of limits. You can free things from alien or accidental laws, but not from the laws of their own nature.”

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

428. “If a man only likes victory he must always come late for the battle.”

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

429. “The Christian permits free will to remain a sacred mystery; but because of this his relations with the housemaid become of a sparkling and crystal clearness. He puts the seed of dogma in a central darkness; but it branches forth in all directions with abounding natural health.”

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

430. “Only man can be absurd: for only man can be dignified.”

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

431. “A change of opinions is almost unknown in an elderly military man.”

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

432. “We all feel the riddle of the earth without anyone to point it out. The mystery of life is the plainest part of it. The clouds and curtains of darkness, the confounding vapors, these are the daily weather of this world.”

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

433. “The criminal is the creative artist; the detective only the critic.”

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

434. “A great city is the place to escape the true drama of provincial life, and find solace in fantasy.”

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

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

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

436. “The first fact about the celebration of a birthday is that it is a way of affirming defiantly, and even flamboyantly, that it is a good thing to be alive.”

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

Featured in: Firsts Quotes

437. “Men rush towards complexity, but they yearn towards simplicity. They try to be kings; but they dream of being shepherds.”

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

438. “But there is good news yet to hear and fine things to be seen before we go to Paradise by way of Kensal Green.”

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

439. “Ten thousand women marched through the streets shouting, ‘We will not be dictated to,’ and went off and became stenographers.”

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

440. “Man is not merely an evolution but rather a revolution.”

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

441. “What is called matriarchy is simply moral anarchy, in which the mother alone remains fixed because all the fathers are fugitive and irresponsible.”

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

442. “There is nothing so weak, for working purposes, as this enormous importance attached to immediate victory. There is nothing that fails like success.”

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

443. “Grey is a colour that always seems on the eve of changing to some other colour.”

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

444. “Do not, I beseech you be troubled by the increase of forces already in dissolution. You have mistake the hour of the night: it is already morning.”

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

445. “And it is always the humble man who talks too much; the proud man watches himself too closely.”

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

446. “If I did not believe in God, I should still want my doctor, my lawyer and my banker to do so.”

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

447. “I believe in getting into hot water; it keeps you clean.”

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

448. “There are no words to express the abyss between isolation and having one ally.”

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

449. “If you do not understand a man you cannot crush him. And if you do understand him, very probably you will not.”

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

450. “Cruelty is, perhaps, the worst kid of sin. Intellectual cruelty is certainly the worst kind of cruelty.”

— Gilbert K. Chesterton