An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.
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Quotes by G.K. Chesterton
Explore 20 verified and sourced quotes attributed to G.K. Chesterton. Open any quote for its dedicated page, source details and related topics.
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Selected quotes by G.K. Chesterton
There is nothing the matter with Americans except their ideals. The real American is all right; it is the ideal American who is all wrong.
Every act of will is an act of self-limitation. To desire action is to desire limitation. In that sense, every act is an act of self-sacrifice. When you choose anything, you reject everything else.
Compromise used to mean that half a loaf was better than no bread. Among modern statesmen it really seems to mean that half a loaf is better than a whole loaf.
Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die.
Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it.
Tradition may be defined as an extension of the franchise. Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead.
I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that falls on them unless they act.
There is a great man who makes every man feel small. But the real great man is the man who makes every man feel great.
The trouble about always trying to preserve the health of the body is that it is so difficult to do without destroying the health of the mind.
Honor is a luxury for aristocrats, but it is a necessity for hall porters.
The function of the imagination is not to make strange things settled, so much as to make settled things strange.
All slang is metaphor, and all metaphor is poetry.
All conservatism is based upon the idea that if you leave things alone you leave them as they are. But you do not. If you leave a thing alone you leave it to a torrent of change.
Journalism largely consists in saying “Lord Jones Dead” to people who never knew that Lord Jones was alive.
I came to the conclusion that the optimist thought everything good except the pessimist, and that the pessimist thought everything bad, except himself.
“My country, right or wrong,” is a thing that no patriot would think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying, “My mother, drunk or sober.”
Bigotry may be roughly defined as the anger of men who have no opinions.
The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.
One may understand the cosmos, but never the ego; the self is more distant than any star.
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