Inspirational Quotes by G.K. Chesterton

“My country, right or wrong,” is a thing that no patriot would think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying, “My mother, drunk or sober.”

“We should always endeavor to wonder at the permanent thing, not at the mere exception. We should be startled by the sun, and not by the eclipse. We should wonder less at the earthquake, and wonder more at the earth.”

“The most incredible thing about miracles is that they happen.”

“In the little world in which children have their existence, whosoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt as injustice.”

“There are two ways of getting home; and one of them is to stay there.”

“Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts.”

“Always be comic in a tragedy. What the deuce else can you do?”

“Hope is the power of being cheerful in circumstances that we know to be desperate.”

“It is a pleasant world we live in, sir, a very pleasant world. There are bad people in it, Mr. Richard, but if there were no bad people, there would be no good lawyers.”

“The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected. Even when the revolutionist might himself repent of his revolution, the traditionalist is already defending it as part of his tradition. Thus we have two great types -- the advanced person who rushes us into ruin, and the retrospective person who admires the ruins. He admires them especially by moonlight, not to say moonshine. Each new blunder of the progressive or prig becomes instantly a legend of immemorial antiquity for the snob. This is called the balance, or mutual check, in our Constitution.”

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

“The riddles of God are more satisfying than the solutions of man.”

“Christmas is built upon a beautiful and intentional paradox; that the birth of the homeless should be celebrated in every home.”

“The criminal is the creative artist; the detective only the critic.”

“For some nights I slept profoundly; but still every morning I felt the same lassitude, and a languor weighed upon me all day. I felt myself a changed girl. A strange melancholy was stealing over me, a melancholy that I would not have interrupted. Dim thoughts of death began to open, and an idea that I was slowly sinking took gentle, and, somehow, not unwelcome possession of me. If it was sad, the tone of mind which this induced was also sweet. Whatever it might be, my soul acquiesced in it.”

“Moths, and all sorts of ugly creatures, hover about a lighted candle. Can the candle help it?”

“I love your daughter fondly, dearly, disninterestedly, devotedly. If ever there were love in the world, I love her.”

“Then tell Wind and Fire where to stop," returned madame; "but don't tell me.”

“According to most philosophers, God in making the world enslaved it. According to Christianity, in making it, He set it free. God had written, not so much a poem, but rather a play; a play he had planned as perfect, but which had necessarily been left to human actors and stage-managers, who had since made a great mess of it.”

“Not knowing how he lost himself, or how he recovered himself, he may never feel certain of not losing himself again.”