Quotes from Gilbert K. Chesterton

Happiness is a mystery, like religion, and should never be rationalised.

The test of happiness is gratitude.

The real pleasure-seeking is the combination of luxury and austerity in such a way that the luxury can really be felt.

It is easy to be heavy: hard to be light.

I defy anybody to say what are the rights of a citizen, if they do not include the control of his own diet in relation to his own health.

Christmas is built upon a beautiful and intentional paradox; that the birth of the homeless should be celebrated in every home.

Honour is a luxury for aristocrats, but it is a necessity for hall-porters.

Hope means hoping when everything seems hopeless.

We lose our bearings entirely by speaking of the 'lower classes' when we mean humanity minus ourselves.

Journalism largely consists of saying 'Lord Jones is Dead' to people who never knew that Lord Jones was alive.

humor can get in under the door while seriousness is still fumbling at the handle

The Party System was founded on one national notion of fair play. It was the notion that folly and futility should be fairly divided between both sides.

Imagination does not breed insanity. Exactly what does breed insanity is reason. Poets do not go mad, but chess players do.

God is like the sun; you cannot look at it, but without it you cannot look at anything else.

And when it rains on your parade, look up rather than down. Without the rain, there would be no rainbow.

We are all in the same boat, in a stormy sea, and we owe each other a terrible loyalty.

If there were no God, there would be no atheists.

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.

There is a great deal of difference between an eager man who wants to read a book and the tired man who wants a book to read.

If you argue with a madman, it is extremely probable that you will get the worst of it; for in many ways his mind moves all the quicker for not being delayed by the things that go with good judgment.

There is no such thing on earth as an uninteresting subject; the only thing that can exist is an uninterested person.

If it's worth doing, it's worth doing badly. (on not perfectionism to put things off) .

of being strong and brave. The strong can not be brave. Only the weak can be brave; and yet again, in practice, only those who can be brave can be trusted, in time of doubt, to be strong.

How much larger your life would be if you were smaller in it.