Quotes from Gilbert Keith Chesterton

There is only one thing that it requires real courage to say, and that is a truism.

The aim of life is appreciation; there is no sense in not appreciating things; and there is no sense in having more of them if you have less appreciation of them.

The simplification of anything is always sensational.

Impartiality is a pompous name for indifference, which is an elegant name for ignorance.

All things are from God; and above all, reason and imagination and the great gifts of the mind. They are good in themselves; and we must not altogether forget their origin even in their perversion.

A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.

If you convey to a woman that something ought to be done, there is always a dreadful danger that she will suddenly do it.

Very few reputations are gained by unsullied virtue.

The most incredible thing about miracles is that they happen.

Moderate strength is shown in violence, supreme strength is shown in levity.

Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.

A sober man may become a drunkard through being a coward. A brave man may become a coward through being a drunkard.

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

Without education, we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously.

What embitters the world is not excess of criticism, but absence of self-criticism.

When a politician is in opposition he is an expert on the means to some end; and when he is in office he is an expert on the obstacles to it.

We ought to see far enough into a hypocrite to see even his sincerity.

A new philosophy generally means in practice the praise of some old vice.

The most dangerous criminal now is the entirely lawless modern philosopher. Compared to him, burglars and bigamists are essentially moral men.

Democracy means government by the uneducated, while aristocracy means government by the badly educated

There are no uninteresting things, there are only uninterested people.

An artist will betray himself by some sort of sincerity.

Men may keep a sort of level of good, but no man has ever been able to keep on one level of evil.

Silver is sometimes more valuable than gold, that is, in large quantities.