A businessman is the only man who is forever apologizing for his occupation.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

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

A man who says that no patriot should attack the war until it is over... is saying no good son should warn his mother of a cliff until she has fallen.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

A new philosophy generally means in practice the praise of some old vice.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

A puritan is a person who pours righteous indignation into the wrong things.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

A radical generally meant a man who thought he could somehow pull up the root without affecting the flower. A conservative generally meant a man who wanted to conserve everything except his own reason for conserving anything.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

A room without books is like a body without a soul.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

A stiff apology is a second insult... The injured party does not want to be compensated because he has been wronged; he wants to be healed because he has been hurt.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

A teacher who is not dogmatic is simply a teacher who is not teaching.
Gilbert K. Chesterton


A woman uses her intelligence to find reasons to support her intuition.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

A yawn is a silent shout.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

All architecture is great architecture after sunset; perhaps architecture is really a nocturnal art, like the art of fireworks.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

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.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

All slang is metaphor, and all metaphor is poetry.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

And they that rule in England, in stately conclaves met, alas, alas for England they have no graves as yet.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

And when it rains on your parade, look up rather than down. Without the rain, there would be no rainbow.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

Art consists of limitation. The most beautiful part of every picture is the frame.
Gilbert K. Chesterton