Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes About Literature

• Drink because you are happy, but never because you are miserable.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Drinking, Alcohol, Literature

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.163, Simon and Schuster

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

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Inspirational, Happiness, Rain

• Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Funny, Respect, Humor

  The Man WhoWas Thursday ch. 4 (1908)

• Let your religion be less of a theory and more of a love affair.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Love, Faith, Religious

• The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Funny, Food, Sarcasm

  "Alarms And Discursions". Book by Gilbert K. Chesterton, 1910.

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

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Men, Vulgarity Is, Class

• Journalism is popular, but it is popular mainly as fiction. Life is one world, and life seen in the newspapers is another.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Fiction, Literature, World

  "On the Cryptic and the Elliptic", All Things Considered, 1908.

• The purpose of Compulsory Education is to deprive the common people of their commonsense.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Education, School, People

• To be clever enough to get all that money, one must be stupid enough to want it.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Funny, Money, Clever

  Wisdom of Father Brown (1914) "Paradise of Thieves"

• Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Inspirational, Book, Reading

  Defendant (1901) "Defence of Penny Dreadfuls"

• Man is an exception, whatever else he is. If he is not the image of God, then he is a disease of the dust. If it is not true that a divine being fell, then we can only say that one of the animals went entirely off its head.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  God, Animal, Men

• The present condition of fame is merely fashion.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Fashion, Literature, Fame

• Ritual will always mean throwing away something: destroying our corn or wine upon the altar of our gods.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  God, Wine, Mean

  "Tremendous Trifles. Secret of a Train". Book by Gilbert K. Chesterton, 1909.

• The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Mind, Literature, Mouths

• Music with dinner is an insult both to the cook and the violinist.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Music, Food, Literature

  Quoted in The NewYork Times, 16 Nov 1967.

• If I can put one touch of rosy sunset into the life of any man or woman, I shall feel that I have worked with God.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Motivational, Sunset, Men

• Happiness is a mystery, like religion, and should never be rationalised.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Happiness, Literature, Mystery

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (1909). “Heretics”

• If you do not understand a man you cannot crush him. And if you do understand him, very probably you will not.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Crush, Men, Understanding

• The greenhorn is the ultimate victor in everything; it is he that gets the most out of life.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Literature, Innocence, Gullibility

• I was planning to go into architecture. But when I arrived, architecture was filled up. Acting was right next to it, so I signed up for acting instead.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Filled Up, Acting, Literature

• What people call impartiality may simply mean indifference, and what people call partiality may simply mean mental activity.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Mean, People, Literature

• The beautification of the world is not a work of nature, but a work of art, then it involves an artist.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Art, Literature, World

• And all over the world, the old literature, the popular literature, is the same. It consists of very dignified sorrow and very undignified fun. Its sad tales are of broken hearts; its happy tales are of broken heads.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Art, Fun, Broken

• The aim of good prose words is to mean what they say. The aim of good poetical words is to mean what they do not say.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Art, Mean, Literature

• The decay of society is praised by artists as the decay of a corpse is praised by worms.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Art, Decay, Literature

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