Quotes from G. K. Chesterton

Leisure is being allowed to do nothing.

True contentment is the power of getting of any situation all that there is in it.

The historic glory of America lies in the fact that it is the one nation that was founded like a church. That is, it was founded on a faith that was not merely summed up after it had exited, but was defined before it existed.

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 matters very little whether a man is discontented in the name of pessimism or progress, if his discontent does in fact paralyse his power of appreciating what he has got.

I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act, but I do believe in a fate that falls on men unless they act.

There is one thing which gives radiance to everything. It is the idea of something around the corner.

The true object of human life is play.

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

Men always talk about the most important things to perfect strangers.

There is but an inch of difference between the cushioned chamber and the padded cell.

Large organization is loose organization. Nay, it would be almost as true to say that organization is always disorganization.

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

New roads; new ruts.

Psychoanalysis is confession without absolution.

Angels fly because they take themselves lightly.

Facts as facts do not always create a spirit of reality, because reality is a spirit.

Silence is the unbearable repartee.

To be simple is the best thing in the world.

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

He who lives in the future lives in a featureless blank; he lives in impersonality; he lives in Nirvana. The past is democratic, because it is a people. The future is despotic, because it is a caprice. Every man is alone in his prediction, just as each man is alone in a dream.

Of all modern notions, the worst is this: that domesticity is dull. Inside the home, they say, is dead decorum and routine; outside is adventure and variety. But the truth is that the home is the only place of liberty, the only spot on earth where a man can alter arrangements suddenly, make an experiment or indulge in a whim. The home is not the one tame place in a world of adventure; it is the one wild place in a world of rules and set tasks.

Merely having an open mind is nothing. The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.

Angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly.