Another 100 GKC Quotes

More short gems from the great G. K. Chesterton:

If you love Chesterton you will love what you find here. If not, well, look away now. This is now my third article featuring 100 brief quotes by GKC that I have done this month. The two previous pieces are found here:

https://billmuehlenberg.com/2026/08/11/classic-one-liners-from-g-k-chesterton/

https://billmuehlenberg.com/2026/08/15/another-100-classic-one-liners-from-g-k-chesterton/

These short quotes – mostly one-liners – are offered in more-or-less alphabetical order:

A hunger for civilization is an appetite not easily appreciated now, when people are so overcivilized that they can only have a hunger for barbarism.

A man is perfectly entitled to laugh at a thing because he happens to find it incomprehensible. What he has no right to do is to laugh at it as incomprehensible, and then criticize it as if he comprehended it.

A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed.

A man who has faith must be prepared not only to be a martyr, but to be a fool.

A man with no sword can never be beaten in swordmanship.

A new philosophy generally means in practice the praise of some old vice.

All men can be criminals, if tempted; all men can be heroes, if inspired.

An enormous number of normal youths are quite abnormal for a time.

Any one setting out to dispute anything ought always to begin by saying what he does not dispute.

Believe me, you never know the best about men till you know the worst about them.

Blasphemy depends upon belief and is fading with it. If any one doubts this, let him sit down seriously and try to think blasphemous thoughts about Thor.

But it is impossible to be an artist and not care for laws and limits. Art is limitation; the essence of every picture is the frame.

Change is about the narrowest and hardest groove that a man can get into.

Christianity is not a creed for good men, but for men.

Complete self-confidence is not merely a sin; complete self-confidence is a weakness.

Different first principles make debate impossible.

Every true artist does feel, consciously or unconsciously, that he is touching transcendental truths; that his images are shadows of things seen through the veil.

Everybody knows what birth control means. It means love towards sex that is not toward life.

Everything is different in the dark.

Fiction means the common things as seen by the uncommon people. Fairy tales mean the uncommon things as seen by the common people.

For fear of the newspapers politicians are dull, and at last they are too dull even for the newspapers.

For some extraordinary reason, there is a fixed notion that it is more liberal to disbelieve in miracles than to believe in them.

He who wills to reject nothing, wills the destruction of will; for will is not only the choice of something, but the rejection of almost everything.

How can we contrive to be at once astonished at the world and yet at home in it?

I believe in preaching to the converted; for I have generally found that the converted do not understand their own religion.

I can imagine no more successful and productive form of manufacture than that of making mountains out of molehills.

I must be prepared for the moral fall of any man in any position at any moment; especially for my fall from my position at this moment.

If reapers sing while reaping, why should not auditors sing while auditing and bankers while banking?

In prosperity, our friends know us. In adversity, we know our friends.

In short, the democratic faith is this: that the most terribly important things must be left to ordinary men themselves—the mating of the sexes, the rearing of the young, the laws of the state.

In short, we do not get good laws to restrain bad people. We get good people to restrain bad laws.

In so far as I am Man I am the chief of creatures. In so far as I am a man I am the chief of sinners.

It is always easy to let the age have its head; the difficult thing is to keep one’s own.

It is now certain that the public does know. It is not so certain that the public does care.

It is still bad taste to be an avowed atheist. But their agony has achieved just this—that now it is equally bad taste to be an avowed Christian.

It is true that I am of an older fashion; much that I love has been destroyed or sent into exile.

Just the other day in the Underground I enjoyed the pleasure of offering my seat to three ladies.

Love is the most realistic thing in the world.

[Man] has always lost his way; but now he has lost his address.

Men did not love Rome because she was great. She was great because they had loved her.

Men who begin to fight the Church for the sake of freedom and humanity end by flinging away freedom and humanity if only they may fight the Church.

Nine out of ten of what we call new ideas are simply old mistakes.

Nobody has any business to use the word “progress” unless he has a definite creed and a cast-iron code of morals.

Nothing is important except the fate of the soul.

Now I deny most energetically that anything is, or can be, uninteresting.

Of all horrible religions the most horrible is the worship of the god within.

Of course sane people always thought the aim of marriage was the procreation of children to the glory of God or according to the plan of Nature

One can hardly think too little of one’s self. One can hardly think too much of one’s soul.

One can sometimes do good by being the right person in the wrong place.

Only men to whom the family is sacred will ever have a standard by which to criticize the state.

Pagans were wiser then paganism; that is why the pagans became Christians.

Posting a letter and getting married are among the few things left that are entirely romantic; for to be entirely romantic a thing must be irrevocable.

Pragmatism is a matter of human needs; and one of the first of human needs is to be something more than a pragmatist.

Pride consists in a man making his personality the only test, instead of making truth the test.

Religion may be defined as that which puts first things first.

Self-denial is the test and definition of self-government.

So strong is tradition that later generations will dream of what they have never seen.

Statements are made so plainly and positively that men have hardly the moral courage to pause upon them and find that they are without support.

Telling the truth about the terrible struggle of the human soul is surely a very elementary part of the ethics of honesty.

The answer to anyone who talks about the surplus population is to ask him whether he is the surplus population; or if he is not, how he knows he is not.

The Christian is quite free to believe that there is a considerable amount of settled order and inevitable development in the universe. But the materialist is not allowed to admit into his spotless machine the slightest speck of spiritualism or miracle.

The Christian is only worse because it is his business to be better.

The church is justified, not because her children do not sin, but because they do.

The criminal we must forgive unto seventy times seven. The crime we must not forgive at all.

The crux and crisis is that man found it natural to worship; even natural to worship unnatural things.

The disintegration of rational society started in the drift from the hearth and the family; the solution must be a drift back.

The Eugenists’ books and articles are full of suggestions that non-eugenic unions should and may come to be regarded as we regard sins; that we should really feel that marrying an invalid is a kind of cruelty to children.

The Family is much more of a fact than the State.

The great saint may be said to mix all his thoughts with thanks. All goods look better when they look like gifts.

The little sins are sometimes harder to confess than the big ones—but that’s why it’s so important to confess them.

The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason.

The modern man in revolt has become practically useless for all purposes of revolt. By rebelling against everything he has lost his right to rebel against anything.

The modern State has educated its citizens in a series of ephemeral fads.

The moment sex ceases to be a servant it becomes a tyrant.

The old idealistic republicans used to found democracy on the idea that all men were equally intelligent. Believe me, the sane and enduring democracy is founded on the fact that all men are equally idiotic.

The philosophical case against theism is rather easily dealt with. There is no philosophical case against theism.

The Reformer is always right about what’s wrong. However, he’s often wrong about what is right.

The things we see every day are the things we never see at all.

There is an attack on the family; and the only thing to do with an attack is to attack it.

There is but an inch of difference between the cushioned chamber and the padded cell.

There is one thing which gives radiance to everything. It is the idea of something around the corner.

There is no bigot like the atheist.

There will be more, not less, respect for human rights if they can be treated as divine rights.

This cult of the future is not only a weakness but a cowardice of the age.

This is the first principle of democracy: that the essential things in men are the things they hold in common, not the things they hold separately.

True contentment is a thing as active as agriculture. It is the power of getting out of any situation all that there is in it. It is arduous and it is rare.

Uncommon sense is common nonsense.

Until we realize that things might not be we cannot realize that things are.

We are all revenants; all living Christians are dead pagans walking about.

We are learning to do a great many clever things…The next great task will be to learn not to do them.

We are rarely in danger of examining to excess, especially when the subject is the shape of our own lives.

We have eternity to stretch our legs in.

We make our friends; we make our enemies; but God makes our next-door neighbor.

We may fight for the cause of international peace because we are very fond of fighting.

What is the good of begetting a man until we have settled what is the good of being a man?

What is now called free thought is valued, not because it is free thought, but because it is freedom from thought; because it is free thoughtlessness.

When a politician is in opposition he is an expert on the means to some end; and when he is in office he is an expert on the obstacles to it.

When it comes to life, the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude.

When there aren’t enough hats to go around the problem isn’t solved by lopping off some heads.

When we were children we were grateful to those who filled our stockings at Christmas time. Why are we not grateful to God for filling our stockings with legs?

[1952 words]