G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy Quotes

The main point of Christianity was this: that Nature is not our mother: Nature is our sister.

I still think sincere pessimism the unpardonable sin.

Every act of will is an act of self-limitation. To desire action is to desire limitation. In that sense, every act is an act of self-sacrifice. When you choose anything, you reject everything else.

Christianity got over the difficulty of combining furious opposites, by keeping them both, and keeping them both furious.

How can we say that the Church wishes to bring us back into the Dark Ages? The Church was the only thing that ever brought us out of them.

If you consulted your business experiences instead of your ugly individualistic philosophy, you would know that believing in himself is one of the commonest signs of a rotter.

[The materialist] thinks me a slave because I am not allowed to believe in determinism. I think [the materialist] a slave because he is not allowed to believe in fairies.

An historic institution, which never went right, is really quite much of a miracle as an institution that cannot go wrong.

The Christian optimism is based on the fact that we do not fit in to the world.

Satan fell by the force of gravity.

And the more I considered Christianity, the more I found that while it had established a rule and order, the chief aim of of that order was to give room for good things to run wild.

There is such a thing as a small and cramped eternity. You may see it in many modern religions

Man is more himself, more manlike, when joy is the fundamental thing and grief superficial.

Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.

What again could this astonishing thing be like which people were so anxious to contradict, that in doing so they did not mind contradicting themselves?

The man who kills a man kills a man.The man who kills himself kills all men.As far as he is concerned, he wipes out the world.

Love is not blind that is the last thing that it is. Love is bound and the more it is bound the less it is blind.