A stiff apology is a second insult… The injured party does not want to be compensated because he has been wronged; he wants to be healed because he has been hurt. – Gilbert K. Chesterton
Never invoke the gods unless you really want them to appear. It annoys them very much. – Gilbert K. Chesterton
The purpose of Compulsory Education is to deprive the common people of their commonsense. – Gilbert K. Chesterton
The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because generally they are the same people. – Gilbert K. Chesterton
I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder. – Gilbert K. Chesterton
Once I planned to write a book of poems entirely about the things in my pocket. But I found it would be too long; and the age of the great epics is past. – Gilbert K. Chesterton
Journalism largely consists of saying ‘Lord Jones is Dead’ to people who never knew that Lord Jones was alive. – Gilbert K. Chesterton
Being ‘contented’ ought to mean in English, as it does in French, being pleased. Being content with an attic ought not to mean being unable to move from it and resigned to living in it; it ought to mean appreciating all there is in such a position. – Gilbert K. Chesterton
And when it rains on your parade, look up rather than down. Without the rain, there would be no rainbow. – Gilbert K. Chesterton
The man who throws a bomb is an artist, because he prefers a great moment to everything. – Gilbert K. Chesterton
People who make history know nothing about history. You can see that in the sort of history they make. – Gilbert K. Chesterton
Large organization is loose organization. Nay, it would be almost as true to say that organization is always disorganization. – Gilbert K. Chesterton
‘My country, right or wrong’ is a thing no patriot would ever think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying ‘My mother, drunk or sober.’ – Gilbert K. Chesterton
There is a great deal of difference between an eager man who wants to read a book and the tired man who wants a book to read. – Gilbert K. Chesterton
With any recovery from morbidity there must go a certain healthy humiliation. – Gilbert K. Chesterton
The family is the test of freedom; because the family is the only thing that the free man makes for himself and by himself. – Gilbert K. Chesterton
Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of readiness to die. – Gilbert K. Chesterton
Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it. – Gilbert K. Chesterton
Experience which was once claimed by the aged is now claimed exclusively by the young. – Gilbert K. Chesterton
When we really worship anything, we love not only its clearness but its obscurity. We exult in its very invisibility. – Gilbert K. Chesterton
The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried. – Gilbert K. Chesterton
Democracy means government by the uneducated, while aristocracy means government by the badly educated. – Gilbert K. Chesterton
