The quotations of

G. K. Chesterton

English author and Christian apologist

1874–1936

94 quotes, most often on Christianity, God and Truth & Lies. Part of the Writers collection.

Why be something to everybody when you can be everything to somebody?
- Love
The riddles of God are more satisfying than the solutions of man.
“The Book of Job: An introduction”, in Putnam’s Monthly (June 1907) p. 356, col. 1
- God
At least five times…with the Arian and the Albigensian, with the Humanist sceptic, after Voltaire and after Darwin, the Faith has to all appearance gone to the dogs. In each of these five cases it was the dog that died.
The Everlasting Man
- Christianity
All but the hard hearted man must be torn with pity for this pathetic dilemma of the rich man, who has to keep the poor man just stout enough to do the work and just thin enough to have to do it.
Utopia of Usurers
- Money
Marriage is a duel to the death which no man of honour should decline.
Michael Moon in Part II, ch. IV
- Marriage
The truth is, of course, that the curtness of the Ten Commandments is an evidence, not of the gloom and narrowness of a religion, but, on the contrary, of its liberality and humanity. It is shorter to state the things forbidden than the things permitted: precisely because most things are permitted, and only a few things are forbidden.
- Christianity
By a curious confusion, many modern critics have passed from the proposition that a masterpiece may be unpopular to the other proposition that unless it is unpopular it cannot be a masterpiece.
Generally Speaking
- Art
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.
- Poetry
Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere.
As quoted in Arts magazine: Vol. 1 (1926), also in The Golden Book magazine, Vol. 7 (1928) by Henry Wysham Lanier, p. 323.
- Art
Too much capitalism does not mean too many capitalists, but too few capitalists.
The Uses of Diversity
- Economics
Once abolish the God, and the government becomes the God.
Christendom in Dublin (1932), Ch. III: Very Christian Democracy
- God
- Government
These are the days when the Christian is expected to praise every creed except his own.
In The Illustrated London News (11 August 1928)
- Christianity
America is the only country ever founded on a creed.
What I Saw In America
- America
The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.
‘Cheese,’ p. 70
- Poetry
An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered; an adventure is an inconvenience rightly considered.
All Things Considered (1908), “On Running After One’s Hat”

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