Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes About Virtue

• Love means to love that which is unlovable; or it is no virtue at all.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Love, Mean, Humility

• Tolerance is the virtue of people who do not believe in anything.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Believe, People, Tolerance

• I believe in getting into hot water; it keeps you clean.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Funny, Believe, Evil

• When people talk as if the Crusades were nothing more than an aggressive raid against Islam, they seem to forget in the strangest way that Islam itself was only an aggressive raid against the old and ordered civilization in these parts. I do not say it in mere hostility to the religion of Mahomet; I am fully conscious of many values and virtues in it; but certainly it was Islam that was the invasion and Christendom that was the thing invaded.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Civilization, People, Islam

• The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone. Thus some scientists care for truth; and their truth is pitiless. Thus some humanitarians only care for pity; and their pity (I am sorry to say) is often untruthful.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Christian, Sorry, Mad

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.20, Simon and Schuster

• Americans are a very backward people, with all the real virtues of a backward people; the patriarchal simplicity and human dignity of a democracy, and a respect for labor uncorrupted by cynicism.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Respect, Real, People

• Women have a thirst for order and beauty as for something physical; there is a strange female power of hating ugliness and waste as good men can only hate sin and bad men virtue.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Love, Hate, Men

• The whole truth is generally the ally of virtue; a half-truth is always the ally of some vice.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Catholic, Half, Vices

• Business, especially big business, is now organized like an army. It is, as some would say, a sort of mild militarism without bloodshed; as I say, a militarism without the military virtues.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Business, Military, Army

• If prosperity is regarded as the reward of virtue it will be regarded as the symptom of virtue.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Rewards, Wealth, Prosperity

• Hope means hoping when things are hopeless, or it is no virtue at all... As long as matters are really hopeful, hope is mere flattery or platitude; it is only when everything is hopeless that hope begins to be a strength.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Hope, Mean, Long

• Variability is one of the virtues of a woman. It avoids the crude requirement of polygamy. So long as you have one good wife you are sure to have a spiritual harem".

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Spiritual, Women, Long

• There is no such thing as education. The thing is merely a loose phrase for the passing on to others of whatever truth or virtue we happen to have ourselves. It is typical of our time that the more doubtful we are about the value of philosophy, the more certain we are about the value of education. That is to say, the more doubtful we are about whether we have any truth, the more certain we are (apparently) that we can teach it to our children.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Children, Philosophy, Passing On

• The act of defending any of the cardinal virtues has today all the exhilaration of a vice.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Vices, Today, Exhilaration

  The Defendant "A Defence of Humility" (1901)

• Man seems to be capable of great virtues but not of small virtues; capable of defying his torturer but not of keeping his temper.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Men, Literature, Virtue

• Wait and see whether the religion of the Servile State is not in every case what I say: the encouragement of small virtues supporting capitalism, the discouragement of the huge virtues that defy it.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Encouragement, Waiting, Virtue

  "Utopia of Usurers". Book by Gilbert K. Chesterton, p. 37, 1917.

• Hope means hoping when things are hopeless, or it is no virtue at all. And faith means believing the incredible, or it is no virtue at all.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Faith, Believe, Inspiration

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.185, Simon and Schuster

• It may be a mere patriotic bias, though I do not think so, but it seems to me that the English aristocracy is not only the type, but is the crown and flower of all actual aristocracies; it has all the oligarchical virtues as well as all the defects. It is casual, it is kind, it is courageous in obvious matters; but it has one great merit that overlaps even these. The great and very obvious merit of the English aristocracy is that nobody could possibly take it seriously.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Flower, Patriotic, Thinking

  "Orthodoxy". Book by G. K. Chesterton, Chapter VI. "The Paradoxes of Christianity", 1908.

• The modern world is not evil; in some ways the modern world is far too good. It is full of wild and wasted virtues. When a religious scheme is shattered (as Christianity was shattered at the Reformation), it is not merely the vices that are let loose. The vices are, indeed, let loose, and they wander and do damage. But the virtues are let loose also; and the virtues wander more wildly, and the virtues do more terrible damage. The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Christian, Religious, Evil

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.20, Simon and Schuster

• When we reverence anything in the mature, it is their virtues or their wisdom, and this is an easy matter. But we reverence the faults and follies of children. We should probably come considerably nearer to the true conception of things if we treated all grown-up persons, of all titles and types, with precisely that dark affection and dazed respect with which we treat the infantile limitations.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Children, Dark, Matter

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

• Very few reputations are gained by unsullied virtue.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Reputation, Virtue

  "The Innocence of Father Brown". Book by G. K. Chesterton, The Sins of Prince Saradine, 1911.

• Virtue is not the absence of vices or the avoidance of moral dangers; virtue is a vivid and separate thing, like pain or a particular smell.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Pain, Smell, Vices

• Very few people in the world would care to listen to the real defense of their own characters. The real defense, the defense which belongs to the Day of Judgment, would make such damaging admissions, would clear away so many artificial virtues, would tell such tragedies of weakness and failure, that a man would sooner be misunderstood and censured by the world than exposed to that awful and merciless eulogy.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Real, Character, Men

• Tolerance is the virtue of those who don't believe anything.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Believe, Tolerance, Virtue

• Tolerance is a virtue of people who don't believe in anything anymore.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Believe, People, Tolerance

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