The Personal Website of Mark W. Dawson

My Favorite Quotes of Gilbert K. Chesterton

Gilbert K. Chesterton (29 May 1874 – 14 June 1936), commonly known as G.K. Chesterton, was an English writer, philosopher, lay theologian, and literary and art critic. He has been referred to as the "prince of paradox". Time magazine observed of his writing style: "Whenever possible Chesterton made his points with popular sayings, proverbs, allegories—first carefully turning them inside out." Chesterton faced accusations of antisemitism during his lifetime, saying in his 1920 book The New Jerusalem that it was something "for which my friends and I were for a long period rebuked and even reviled". Despite his protestations to the contrary, the accusation continues to be repeated to this day (click here for a refutation of this antisemitism allegation).

Chesterton created the fictional priest-detective Father Brown, and wrote on apologetics. Even some of those who disagree with him have recognized the wide appeal of such works as Orthodoxy and The Everlasting Man. Chesterton routinely referred to himself as an "orthodox" Christian, and came to identify this position more and more with Catholicism, eventually converting to Roman Catholicism from high church Anglicanism.

Many of G.K. Chesterton’s quotes are apropos to today’s world as they are about timeless truths. Some of my favorites are:

“A dead thing goes with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.”
 - G.K. Chesterton

“A society is in decay, final or transitional, when common sense really becomes uncommon.”
 - G.K. Chesterton

“A strange fanaticism fills our time: the fanatical hatred of morality, especially of Christian morality.”
 - G.K. Chesterton

“But the truth is that it is only by believing in God that we can ever criticize the Government. Once abolish the God, and the Government becomes the God.”
 - G.K. Chesterton

“Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried.”
 - G.K. Chesterton

“Do not be so open-minded that your brains fall out.”
 - G.K. Chesterton

“Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.”
 - G.K. Chesterton

“God is like the sun; you cannot look at it, but without it you cannot look at anything else.”
 - G.K. Chesterton

“God is not a symbol of goodness; goodness is a symbol of God”
 - G.K. Chesterton

“Government has become ungovernable; that is, it cannot leave off governing. Law has become lawless; that is, it cannot see where laws should stop. The chief feature of our time is the meekness of the mob and the madness of the government.”
 - G.K. Chesterton

“Great truths can only be forgotten and can never be falsified.”
 - G.K. Chesterton

“I don't need a church to tell me I'm wrong where I already know I'm wrong; I need a Church to tell me I'm wrong where I think I'm right”
 - 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

“It is absurd for the Evolutionist to complain that it is unthinkable for an admittedly unthinkable God to make everything out of nothing and then pretend that it is more thinkable that nothing should turn itself into everything.”
 - G.K. Chesterton

“It's the first effect of not believing in God that you lose your common sense.”
 - G.K. Chesterton

“I've searched all the parks in all the cities - and found no statues of Committees.”
 - G.K. Chesterton

“Jesus promised his disciples three things—that they would be completely fearless, absurdly happy, and in constant trouble.”
 - G.K. Chesterton

“Modern man is staggering and losing his balance because he is being pelted with little pieces of alleged fact which are native to the newspapers; and, if they turn out not to be facts, that is still more native to newspapers.”
 - G.K. Chesterton

“Right is Right even if nobody does it. Wrong is wrong even if everybody is wrong about it.”
 - G.K. Chesterton

“Science must not impose any philosophy, any more than the telephone must tell us what to say.”
 - G.K. Chesterton

“The problem of disbelieving in God is not that a man ends up believing nothing. Alas, it is much worse. He ends up believing anything.”
 -  Emile Cammaerts (often mistakenly attributed to G. K. Chesterton)

“The purpose of Compulsory Education is to deprive the common people of their commonsense.”
 - G.K. Chesterton

“The reformer is always right about what is wrong. He is generally wrong about what is right.”
 - G.K. Chesterton

“The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected.”
 - G.K. Chesterton

“The whole truth is generally the ally of virtue; a half-truth is always the ally of some vice.”
 - G.K. Chesterton

“The wisest thing in the world is to cry out before you are hurt. It is no good to cry out after you are hurt; especially after you are mortally hurt. People talk about the impatience of the populace; but sound historians know that most tyrannies have been possible because men moved too late. it is often essential to resist a tyranny before it exists.”
 - G.K. Chesterton

“There are two ways to get enough. One is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less.”
 - G.K. Chesterton

“To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it.”
 - G.K. Chesterton

“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

“Tolerance is the virtue of people who do not believe in anything.”
 - G.K. Chesterton

“We do not need a censorship of the press. We have a censorship by the press... It is not we who silence the press. It is the press who silences us.”
 - G.K. Chesterton

“What embitters the world is not excess of criticism, but an absence of self-criticism.”
 - G.K. Chesterton

“When it comes to life the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude.”
 - G.K. Chesterton

“When people begin to ignore human dignity, it will not be long before they begin to ignore human rights.”
 - G.K. Chesterton

For more quotes, please visit The Society of G.K. Chesterton quotations webpage.