Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes

English - Writer | May 29, 1874 - June 14, 1936

I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

SuccessRespectBestAdviceDoing

There is nothing the matter with Americans except their ideals. The real American is all right; it is the ideal American who is all wrong.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

AmericanWrongNothingMatterRight

An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

AdventureInconvenienceWrongly

A businessman is the only man who is forever apologizing for his occupation.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

ManForeverOnlyWhoBusinessman

Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to that arrogant oligarchy who merely happen to be walking around.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

PoliticsDemocracyWalkingGiving

Journalism is popular, but it is popular mainly as fiction. Life is one world, and life seen in the newspapers is another.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

LifeWorldJournalismFictionSeen

No man who worships education has got the best out of education... Without a gentle contempt for education no man's education is complete.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

EducationBestManGentleOutGot

The trouble with always trying to preserve the health of the body is that it is so difficult to do without destroying the health of the mind.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

HealthMindTryingBodyTrouble

One may understand the cosmos, but never the ego; the self is more distant than any star.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

EgoSelfUnderstandMoreNeverStar

A puritan is a person who pours righteous indignation into the wrong things.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

WrongPersonThingsWhoIndignation

All conservatism is based upon the idea that if you leave things alone you leave them as they are. But you do not. If you leave a thing alone you leave it to a torrent of change.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

ChangeAloneYouLeaveThingsIdea

It is not funny that anything else should fall down; only that a man should fall down. Why do we laugh? Because it is a gravely religious matter: it is the Fall of Man. Only man can be absurd: for only man can be dignified.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

FunnyManLaughFallDownWhy

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