G.K. Chesterton Quotes

But the more shrewdly and earnestly we study the histories of men, the less ready shall we be to make use of the word ‘artificial.’ Nothing in the world has ever been artificial. Many customs, many dresses, many works of art are branded with artificiality because the exhibit vanity and self-consciousness: as if vanity were not a deep and elemental thing, like love and hate and the fear of death. Vanity may be found in darkling deserts, in the hermit and in the wild beasts that crawl around him. It may be good or evil, but assuredly it is not artificial: vanity is a voice out of the abyss.

One sees great things from the valley only small things from the peak.

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

To be simple is the best thing in the world.

Music with dinner is an insult both to the cook and the violinist.

Hope is the power of being cheerful in circumstances which we know to be desperate.

The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost.

Happy is he who still loves something 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.