Christopher > Christopher's Quotes

“And thou, Melkor, shalt see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite. For he that attempteth this shall prove but mine instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion

“To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“Religious liberty might be supposed to mean that everybody is free to discuss religion. In practice it means that hardly anybody is allowed to mention it.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“Angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly.”
― G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

“It isn't that they can't see the solution. It is that they can't see the problem.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man

“How you think when you lose determines how long it will be until you win.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“We men and women are all in the same boat, upon a stormy sea. We owe to each other a terrible and tragic loyalty.”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Collected Works of G.K. Chesterton Volume 28: The Illustrated London News, 1908-1910

“Humility is the mother of giants. One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak.”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Innocence of Father Brown

“For children are innocent and love justice, while most of us are wicked and naturally prefer mercy.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“Love means to love that which is unlovable; or it is no virtue at all.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“A woman uses her intelligence to find reasons to support her intuition.”
― G. K. Chesterton

“Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die.”
― G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

“Impartiality is a pompous name for indifference which is an elegant name for ignorance.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about.”
― G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

“We do not need to get good laws to restrain bad people. We need to get good people to restrain us from bad laws.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“The main point of Christianity was this: that Nature is not our mother: Nature is our sister.”
― G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

“If you happen to read fairy tales, you will observe that one idea runs from one end of them to the other--the idea that peace and happiness can only exist on some condition. This idea, which is the core of ethics, is the core of the nursery-tales.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“According to most philosophers, God in making the world enslaved it. According to Christianity, in making it, He set it free. God had written, not so much a poem, but rather a play; a play he had planned as perfect, but which had necessarily been left to human actors and stage-managers, who had since made a great mess of it.”
― G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

“In prosperity, our friends know us. In adversity, we know our friends”
― G.K. Chesterton

“There are two ways of getting home; and one of them is to stay there.”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man

“The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected. Even when the revolutionist might himself repent of his revolution, the traditionalist is already defending it as part of his tradition. Thus we have two great types -- the advanced person who rushes us into ruin, and the retrospective person who admires the ruins. He admires them especially by moonlight, not to say moonshine. Each new blunder of the progressive or prig becomes instantly a legend of immemorial antiquity for the snob. This is called the balance, or mutual check, in our Constitution.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“Do not free a camel of the burden of his hump; you may be freeing him from being a camel.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“Christmas is built upon a beautiful and intentional paradox; that the birth of the homeless should be celebrated in every home.”
― G.K. Chesterton, Brave New Family: G.K. Chesterton on Men and Women, Children, Sex, Divorce, Marriage and the Family

“Fairy tales do not give the child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon.”
― G.K. Chesterton, Tremendous Trifles

“The first two facts which a healthy boy or girl feels about sex are these: first that it is beautiful and then that it is dangerous.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“These are the days when the Christian is expected to praise every creed except his own.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“Humor can get in under the door while seriousness is still fumbling at the handle.”
― G.K. Chesterton