The Works of G.K. Chesterton Quotes

“Bad government, like good government, is a spiritual thing. Even the tyrant never rules by force alone; but mostly by fairy tales. And so it is with the modern tyrant,”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Chesterton Reader: 21 Works in One Volume (Unexpurgated Edition)

“The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason.”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Chesterton Reader: 21 Works in One Volume (Unexpurgated Edition)

“Tradition may be defined as an extension of the franchise.”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Works of Gilbert Keith Chesterton

“In so far as I am Man I am the chief of creatures. In so far as I am a man I am the chief of sinners.”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Chesterton Reader: 21 Works in One Volume (Unexpurgated Edition)

“Of course sane people always thought the aim of marriage was the procreation of children to the glory of God or according to the plan of Nature;”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Chesterton Reader: 21 Works in One Volume (Unexpurgated Edition)

“In short, the democratic faith is this: that the most terribly important things must be left to ordinary men themselves—the mating of the sexes, the rearing of the young, the laws of the state.”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Chesterton Reader: 21 Works in One Volume (Unexpurgated Edition)

“I did try to found a heresy of my own; and when I had put the last touches to it, I discovered that it was orthodoxy.”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Works of G.K. Chesterton

“That is the problem, and that is why there is now no protection against Eugenic or any other experiments. If the men who took away beer as an unlawful pleasure had paused for a moment to define the lawful pleasures, there might be a different situation. If the men who had denied one liberty had taken the opportunity to affirm other liberties, there might be some defence for them. But it never occurs to them to admit any liberties at all. It never so much as crosses their minds. Hence the excuse for the last oppression will always serve as well for the next oppression; and to that tyranny there can be no end.”
― G.K. Chesterton, Classic British Literature: Works of G.K. Chesterton, 30 books in a single file (Samizdat Edition with Active Tables of Contents), improved 4/3/2011

“It is true that there is a thing crudely called charity, which means charity to the deserving poor; but charity to the deserving is not charity at all, but justice. It is the undeserving who require it, and the ideal either does not exist at all, or exists wholly for them.”
― G.K. Chesterton, Classic British Literature: Works of G.K. Chesterton, 30 books in a single file (Samizdat Edition with Active Tables of Contents), improved 4/3/2011

“They all have exactly that combination we have noted: the combination of an expansive and exhaustive reason with a contracted common sense.”
― G.K. Chesterton, Classic British Literature: Works of G.K. Chesterton, 30 books in a single file (Samizdat Edition with Active Tables of Contents), improved 4/3/2011

“A man who thinks much about success must be the drowsiest sentimentalist; for he must be always looking back. If he only likes victory he must always come late for the battle. For the man of action there is nothing but idealism.”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Works of G.K. Chesterton

“Thoroughly worldly people never understand even the world; they rely altogether on a few cynical maxims which are not true.”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Works of G.K. Chesterton

“Man, by a blind instinct, knew that if once things were wildly questioned, reason could be questioned first. The authority of priests to absolve, the authority of popes to define the authority, even of inquisitors to terrify: these were all only dark defences erected round one central authority, more undemonstrable, more supernatural than all—the authority of a man to think.”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Chesterton Reader: 21 Works in One Volume (Unexpurgated Edition)

“mankind have hitherto held the bond between man and woman so sacred, and the effect of it on the children so incalculable, that they have always admired the maintenance of honour more than the maintenance of safety.”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Chesterton Reader: 21 Works in One Volume (Unexpurgated Edition)