Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes About Earth

• The true object of all human life is play. Earth is a task garden; heaven is a playground.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Fun, Inspirational Life, Garden

  "All Things Considered". Book by Gilbert K. Chesterton, 1908.

• On the third day the friends of Christ coming at daybreak to the place found the grave empty and the stone rolled away. In varying ways they realized the new wonder; but even they hardly realized that the world had died in the night. What they were looking at was the first day of a new creation, with a new heaven and a new earth; and in a semblance of the gardener God walked again in the garden, in the cool not of the evening but of the dawn.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Night, Garden, Heaven

• We should always endeavor to wonder at the permanent thing, not at the mere exception. We should be startled by the sun, and not by the eclipse. We should wonder less at the earthquake, and wonder more at the earth.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Earthquakes, Sun, Wonder

• There is no such thing on earth as an uninteresting subject; the only thing that can exist is an uninterested person.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Inspirational, Earth, Artistic Temperament

  Heretics (1905) ch. 3

• Of all modern notions, the worst is this: that domesticity is dull. Inside the home, they say, is dead decorum and routine; outside is adventure and variety. But the truth is that the home is the only place of liberty, the only spot on earth where a man can alter arrangements suddenly, make an experiment or indulge in a whim. The home is not the one tame place in a world of adventure; it is the one wild place in a world of rules and set tasks.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Home, Adventure, Men

• For us who live in cities Nature is not natural. Nature is supernatural. Just as monks watched and strove to get a glimpse of heaven, so we watch and strive to get a glimpse of earth. It is as if men had cake and wine every day but were sometimes allowed common bread.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Nature, Wine, Men

• I still hold. . .that the suburbs ought to be either glorified by romance and religion or else destroyed by fire from heaven, or even by firebrands from the earth.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Fire, Romance, Heaven

• If seeds in the black earth can turn into such beautiful roses, what might not the heart of man become in its long journey toward the stars?

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Beautiful, Hope, Stars

• But there is in everything a reasonable division of labour. I have written the book, and nothing on earth would induce me to read it.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Book, Division, Earth

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.7, Simon and Schuster

• A mystic is a man who separates heaven and earth even if he enjoys them both.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Men, Heaven, Earth

  "William Blake". Book by Gilbert K. Chesterton, 1920.

• The one perfectly divine thing, the one glimpse of God's paradise given on earth, is to fight a losing battle - and not lose it.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Fighting, Battle, Glimpse

• [Buddhism and Christianity] are in one sense parallel and equal; as a mound and a hollow, as a valley and a hill. There is a sense in which that sublime despair is the only alternative to that divine audacity. It is even true that the truly spiritual and intellectual man sees it as sort of dilemma; a very hard and terrible choice. There is little else on earth that can compare with these for completeness. And he who does not climb the mountain of Christ does indeed fall into the abyss of Buddha.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Spiritual, Fall, Buddhism

• It might reasonably be maintained that the true object of all human life is play. Earth is a task garden; heaven is a playground. To be at last in such secure innocence that one can juggle with the universe and the stars, to be so good that one can treat everything as a joke - that may be, perhaps, the real end and final holiday of human souls.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Faith, Stars, Real

  "All Things Considered". Book by Gilbert K. Chesterton, 1908.

• O God of earth and altar,
  Bow down and hear our cry,
  Our earthly rulers falter,
  Our people drift and die;
  The walls of gold entomb us,
  The swords of scorn divide,
  Take not thy thunder from us,
  But take away our pride.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Wall, Pride, People

  Gilbert Keith Chesterton, “A Hymn”

• All my authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Bible, Heaven, Jesus Christ

• The rich are the scum of the earth in every country.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Country, Scum Of The Earth, Rich

  'The Flying Inn' (1914) ch. 15

• Destiny is but a phrase of the weak human heart - the dark apology for every error. The strong and virtuous admit no destiny. On earth conscience guides; in heaven God watches. And destiny is but the phantom we invoke to silence the one and dethrone the other.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Strong, Heart, Apology

• And pray where in earth or heaven are there prudent marriages-Might as well talk about prudent suicides.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Suicide, Heaven, Earth

• Were Patrick Henry to return to earth and look around on the vast economic order of the day, he might revise his observation and merely say ‘Give me death’-the alternative being manifestly impossible under modern conditions.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Order, Giving, Alternatives

• We all feel the riddle of the earth without anyone to point it out. The mystery of life is the plainest part of it. The clouds and curtains of darkness, the confounding vapors, these are the daily weather of this world.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Clouds, Weather, Darkness

  William Blake (1910)

• THERE are no wise few; for in all men rages the folly of the Fall. Take your strongest, happiest, handsomest, best born, best bred, best instructed men on earth and give them special power for half an hour and because they are men they will begin to [perform] badly.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Wise, Fall, Men

• As long as the vision of heaven is always changing, the vision of earth will be exactly the same. No ideal will remain long enough to be realized, or even partly realized. The modern young man will never change his environment; for he will always change his mind.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Men, Long, Heaven

• Every one on this earth should believe, amid whatever madness or moral failure, that his life and temperament have some object on the earth. Every one on the earth should believe that he has something to give to the world which cannot otherwise be given.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Believe, Giving, World

• There is always in the healthy mind an obscure prompting that religion teaches us rather to dig than to climb; that if we could once understand the common clay of earth we should understand everything. Similarly, we have the sentiment that if we could destroy custom at a blow and see the stars as a child sees them, we should need no other apocalypse. This is the great truth which has always lain at the back of baby-worship, and which will support it to the end.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Baby, Stars, Children

  "The Defendant". Book by Gilbert K. Chesterton, 1901.

• Every one on the earth should believe that he has something to give to the world which cannot otherwise be given.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Believe, Giving, World

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