Quotes from G. K. Chesterton

The trouble with always trying to preserve the health of the body is that it is so difficult to do without destroying the health of the mind.

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

The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.

In a world flagrant with the failures of civilization, what is there particularly immortal about our own?

You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink.

It isn't that they can't see the solution. It is that they can't see the problem.

Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.

And we were angry and poor and happy, And proud of seeing our names in print.

But I do see the good side of water now. How good it is when you're really thirsty, how it glitters and gurgles! How alive it is!

When we were children we were grateful to those who filled our stockings at Christmas time. Why are we not grateful to God for filling our stockings with legs?

Truth must of necessity be stranger than fiction…. For fiction is the creation of the human mind, and therefore is congenial to it.

He was one of those who are driven early in life into too conservative an attitude by the bewildering folly of most revolutionists… His respectability was spontaneous and sudden, a rebellion against rebellion.

There are two ways to get enough. One is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less.

It seems a pity that psychology has destroyed all our knowledge of human nature.

The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes. Unless a particular man made New Year resolutions, he would make no resolutions. Unless a man starts afresh about things, he will certainly do nothing effective.

I always like a dog so long as he isn't spelled backward.

Variability is one of the virtues of a woman. It avoids the crude requirement of polygamy. So long as you have one good wife you are sure to have a spiritual harem.

No things could seem further apart than the doubt of grey and the decision of scarlet. Yet grey and red can mingle, as they do in the morning clouds...

There is nothing the matter with Americans except their ideals. The real American is all right; it is the ideal American who is all wrong.

People wonder why the novel is the most popular form of literature; people wonder why it is read more than books of science or books of metaphysics. The reason is very simple; it is merely that the novel is more true than they are.

We fear men so much, because we fear God so little. One fear cures another. When man's terror scares you, turn your thoughts to the wrath of God.

A cosmic philosophy is not constructed to fit a man; a cosmic philosophy is constructed to fit a cosmos. A man can no more possess a private religion than he can possess a private sun and moon.

A dead thing goes with the stream. Only a living thing can go against it.

A man does not know what he is saying until he knows what he is not saying.