Quotes from G. K. Chesterton

To be clever enough to get all that money one must be stupid enough to want it.

Is dishwater dull? Naturalists with microscopes have told me that it teems with quiet fun.

The mind that finds its way to wild places is the poet's but the mind that never finds its way back is the lunatic's.

No man can be merry unless he is serious.

Hope is the power of being cheerful in circumstances which we know to be desperate.

Forgiving means to pardon the unpardonable Faith means believing the unbelievable And hoping means to hope when things are hopeless.

When people cease to believe in God they don't believe in nothing they believe in anything.

The Bible tells us to love our neighbors and also to love our enemies probably because they are generally the same people.

One may understand the cosmos but never the ego the self is more distant than any star.

The classes that wash most are those that work least.

One sees great things from the valley only small things from the peak.

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

The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one's own country as a foreign land.

No man who worships education has got the best out of education... Without a gentle contempt for education no man's education is complete.

Music with dinner is an insult both to the cook and the violinist.

There is a road from the eye to heart that does not go through the intellect.

It isn't that they can't see the solution, it's that they can't see the problem.

All government is an ugly necessity.

What people call impartiality may simply mean indifference, and what people call partiality may simply mean mental activity.

I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.

When it comes to life the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude.

Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions.

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

Youth is the period in which a man can be hopeless. The end of every episode is the end of the world. But the power of hoping through everything, the knowledge that the soul survives its adventures, that great inspiration comes to the middle-aged.