Quotes from G. K. Chesterton

Happy is he who still loves something that he loved in the nursery: he has not been broken in two by time; he is not two men, but one, and he has saved not only his soul but his life.

And the strongest emotion was that life was as precious as it was puzzling. It was an ecstacy because it was an adventure; it was an adventure because it was an opportunity.

Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese. Virgil, if I remember right, refers to it several times, but with too much Roman restraint. He does not let himself go on cheese. Except Virgil and the anonymous rhymer of "If all the trees were bread and cheese," I can recall no verse about cheese. Yet it has every quality which we require in exalted poetry. It is a short, strong word, and it rhymes to "breeze" and "seas." Cheese has also variety, the very soul of song.

Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it.

...psycho-analysis — that is... confession without absolution.

The sunrise opened above them like some cosmic explosion, shining and shattering and yet silent; as if the world were blown to pieces without a sound. Round the rays of the victorious sun swept a sort of rainbow of confused and conquered colours — brown and blue and green and flaming rose-colour; as though gold were driving before it all the colours of the world.

The only way to get back to them is to go somewhere else; and that is the real object of travel and the real pleasure of holidays. Do you suppose that I go to France in order to see France? Do you suppose that I go to Germany in order to see Germany? I shall enjoy them both; but it is not them that I am seeking... 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.

Artistic temperament is a disease that afflicts amateurs.

A man must love a thing very much if he not only practises it without any hope of fame and money but even practises it without any hope of doing it well.

Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of readiness to die.

The paradox of courage is that a man must be a little careless of his life in order to keep it.

True contentment... is the power of getting out of any situation all that there is in it. It is arduous and it is rare.