Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes About Desire

• The vulgar man is always the most distinguished, for the very desire to be distinguished is vulgar.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Men, Vulgarity Is, Class

• Man knows that there are in the soul tints more bewildering, more numberless, and more nameless that the colors of an autumn forest....Yet he seriously believes that these things can every one of them , in all their tones and semi-tones, in all their blends and unions, be accurately represented by an arbitrary system of grunts and squeals. He believes that an ordinary civilized stockbroker can really produce out of his own inside noises which denote all the mysteries of memory and all the agonies of desire.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Memories, Believe, Autumn

• There are two ways to get enough. One is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Life, Happiness, Smart

• Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of readiness to die.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Courage, Veterans Day, Strong

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.69, Simon and Schuster

• There are some desires that are not desirable.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Desire, Morality, Desirable

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.92, Simon and Schuster

• IF we desire European civilization to be a raid and a rescue, we shall insist rather that souls are in real peril than that their peril is ultimately unreal. And if we wish to exalt the outcast and the crucified, we shall rather wish to think that a veritable God was crucified, rather than a mere sage or hero. Above all, if we wish to protect the poor we shall be in favour of fixed rules and clear dogmas. The rules of a club are occasionally in favour of the poor member. The drift of a club is always in favour of the rich one.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Real, Hero, Thinking

• 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.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Sacrifice, Self, Desire

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.28, Simon and Schuster

• children are simply human beings who are allowed to do what everyone else really desires to do, as for instance, to fly kites, or when seriously wronged to emit prolonged screams for several minutes.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Children, Desire, Kites

• The life of a thinking man will probably be divided into two parts -- the first in which he desires to exterminate modern thinkers, and the second in which he desires to watch them exterminating each other. ... Suppose, for instance, there is an old story and a new skeptic who is skeptical of the story. We have only to wait a little while for a yet newer skeptic who is skeptical of the skeptic. He will probably find the old notion actually a help in his new notion. This process is an abstract truth applying to anything, apart from agreement or disagreement.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Truth, Men, Thinking

• I tell you naught for your comfort, Yea, naught for your desire, Save that the sky grows darker yet And the sea rises higher.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Sea, Sky, Desire

  'The Ballad of the White Horse' (1911) bk. 1, p. 18

• Science only means knowledge; and for [Greek] ancients it did only mean knowledge. Thus the favorite science of the Greeks was Astronomy, because it was as abstract as Algebra. ... We may say that the great Greek ideal was to have no use for useful things. The Slave was he who learned useful things; the Freeman was he who learned useless things. This still remains the ideal of many noble men of science, in the sense they do desire truth as the great Greeks desired it; and their attitude is an external protest against vulgarity of utilitarianism.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Attitude, Learning, Mean

• To desire money is much nobler than to desire success. Desiring money may mean desiring to return to your country, or marry the woman you love, or ransom your father from brigands. But desiring success must mean that you take an abstract pleasure in the unbrotherly act of distancing and disgracing other men.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Country, Money, Father

• The idea of private property universal but private, the idea of families free but still families, of domesticity democratic but still domestic, of one man one house - this remains the real vision and magnet of mankind. The world may accept something more official and general, less human and intimate. But the world will be like a broken-hearted woman who makes a humdrum marriage because she may not make a happy one; Socialism may be the world's deliverance, but it is not the world's desire.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Faith, Real, Inspiration

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.280, Simon and Schuster

You May Also Like:

C. S. Lewis

Hilaire Belloc

Arthur Conan Doyle

Charles Dickens

Agatha Christie

Dale Ahlquist

George MacDonald