Quotes from Gilbert K. Chesterton

The people has no definite disbelief in the temples of theology. The people has a very fiery and practical disbelief in the temples of physical science.

All science, even the divine science, is a sublime detective story. Only it is not set to detect why a man is dead; but the darker secret of why he is alive.

Modern science is necessarily a double-edged tool, a tool that cuts both ways. ... There is no doubt that a Zeppelin is a wonderful thing; but that did not prevent it from becoming a horrible thing.

Physical science is like simple addition: it is either infallible or it is false.

A society is in decay, final or transitional, when common sense really becomes uncommon.

Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another.

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

Journalism is popular, but it is popular mainly as fiction. Life is one world, and life seen in the newspapers is another.

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.

Man is an exception, whatever else he is. If he is not the image of God, then he is a disease of the dust. If it is not true that a divine being fell, then we can only say that one of the animals went entirely off its head.

Artistic temperament is the disease that afflicts amateurs.

Progress is a comparative of which we have not settled the superlative.

I never could see anything wrong in sensationalism; and I am sure our society is suffering more from secrecy than from flamboyant revelations.

At the back of our brains is a blaze of astonishment at our own existence. The object of the artistic and spiritual life is to dig for this sunrise of wonder.

The philosophy of this world may be founded on facts, but its business is run on spiritual impressions and atmospheres.

All literary style, especially national style, is made up of such coincidences, which are a spiritual sort of puns. That is why style is untranslatable.

Do not free a camel of the burden of his hump; you may be freeing him from being a camel.

The greenhorn is the ultimate victor in everything; it is he that gets the most out of life.

We can't turn life into a pleasure. But we can choose such pleasures as are worthy of us and our immortal souls.

In real life the people who are most bigoted are the people who have no convictions at all.

Powerful men who have powerful passions use much of their strength in forging chains for themselves.

I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite.

There is no such thing as Success....That a thing is successful merely means that it is; a millionaire is successful in being a millionaire and a donkey in being a donkey.

The world will very soon be divided, unless I am mistaken, into those who still go on explaining our success, and those somewhat more intelligent who are trying to explain our failure.