Gilbert K. Chesterton Doe Quotations

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

Chastity does not mean abstention from sexual wrong; it means something flaming, like Joan of Arc.

Not only does "orthodox" no longer mean being right, it practically means being wrong.

In anything that does cover the whole of your life - in your philosophy and your religion - you must have mirth. If you do not have mirth you will certainly have madness.

Meaninglessness does not come from being weary of pain. Meaninglessness comes from being weary of pleasure.

There is no obligation on us to be richer, or busier, or more efficient, or more productive, or more progressive, or any way worldlier or wealthier, if it does not make us happier.

If a man does not talk to himself, it is because he is not worth talking to.

Dogma does not mean the absence of thought, but the end of thought.

It is very good for a man to talk about what he does not understand; as long as he understands that he does not understand it.

We ought to be interested in that darkest and most real part of a man in which dwell not the vices that he does not display, but the virtues that he cannot.

A modern man may disapprove of some of his sweeping reforms, and approve others; but finds it difficult not to admire even where he does not approve.

Too much capitalism does not mean too many capitalists, but too few capitalists.

The woman does not work because the man tells her to work and she obeys. On the contrary, the woman works because she has told the man to work and he hasn’t obeyed.

Right is Right even if nobody does it. Wrong is wrong even if everybody is wrong about it.

There are many definite methods, honest and dishonest, which make people rich; the only instinct I know of which does it is that instinct which theological Christianity crudely describes as the sin of avarice.

Making the landlord and the tenant the same person has certain advantages, as that the tenant pays no rent, while the landlord does a little work.

Shouldn't atheist have an equal obligation to explain pleasure in a world of randomness. Where does pleasure come from?

"The Universe repeats itself, with the possible exception of history." Of all earthly studies history is the only one that does not repeat itself. ... Astronomy repeats itself; botany repeats itself; trigonometry repeats itself; mechanics repeats itself; compound long division repeats itself. Every sum if worked out in the same way at any time will bring out the same answer. ... A great many moderns say that history is a science; if so it occupies a solitary and splendid elevation among the sciences; it is the only science the conclusions of which are always wrong.

The State did not own men so entirely, even when it could send them to the stake, as it sometimes does now where it can send them to the elementary school.