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Gilbert Keith Chesterton Quotes

Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it.
We make our friends we make our enemies but God makes our next door neighbour.
Every man has his own courage, and is betrayed because he seeks in himself the courage of other persons.
Education is the period during which you are being instructed by somebody you do not know, about something you do not want to know.
People who make history know nothing about history. You can see that in the sort of history they make.
Dogmatism does not mean the absence of thought, but the end of thought.
Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die.
There is something to be said for every error but, whatever may be said for it, the most important thing to be said about it is that it is erroneous.
The only words that ever satisfied me as describing Nature are the terms used in fairy books, charm, spell, enchantment. They express the arbitrariness of the fact and its mystery.
Coincidences are spiritual puns.
The men who really believe in themselves are all in lunatic asylums.
Truth must necessarily be stranger than fiction for fiction is the creation of the human mind and therefore congenial to it.
Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.
Art consists of limitation. The most beautiful part of every picture is the frame.
All architecture is great architecture after sunset perhaps architecture is really a nocturnal art, like the art of fireworks.
A stiff apology is a second insult. The injured party does not want to be compensated because he has been wronged he wants to be healed because he has been hurt.
Happy is he who still loves something he loved in the nursery He has not been broken in two by time he is not two men, but one, and he has saved not only his soul, but his life.
Democracy means government by the uneducated, while aristocracy means government by the badly educated.
Men feel that cruelty to the poor is a kind of cruelty to animals. They never feel that it is an injustice to equals nay it is treachery to comrades.
I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.
A good novel tells you the truth about its hero but a bad novel tells you the truth about its author.
You can only find truth with logic if you have already found it without it.
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.
I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act but I do believe in a fate that falls on them unless they act.
Marriage is an adventure, like going to war.
The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.
The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost.
Never invoke the gods unless you really want them to appear. It annoys them very much.
Merely having an open mind is nothing. The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.
It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it.
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.
Materialists and madmen never have doubts.