We say, not lightly but very literally, that the truth has made us free. They say that it makes us so free that it cannot be the truth. To them it is like believing in fairyland to believe in such freedom as we enjoy. It is like believing in men with wings to entertain the fancy of men with wills. It is like accepting a fable about a squirrel in conversation with a mountain to believe in a man who is free to ask or a God who is free to answer. This is a manly and a rational negation, for which I for one shall always show respect. But I decline to show any respect for those who first of all clip the bird and cage the squirrel, rivet the chains and refuse the freedom, close all the doors of the cosmic prison on us with a clang of eternal iron, tell us that our emancipation is a dream and our dungeon a necessity; and then calmly turn round and tell us they have a freer thought and a more liberal theology.


G. K. Chesterton

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Bigotry may be roughly defined as the anger of men who have no opinions.
G. K. CHESTERTON
When Michelangelo finished the painting of the Sistine Chapel's ceiling, he spent the rest of his li...
G. K. CHESTERTON
The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because generally t...
G. K. CHESTERTON
Journalism is popular, but it is popular mainly as fiction. Life is one world, and life seen in the ...
G. K. CHESTERTON
'My country, right or wrong' is a thing no patriot would ever think of saying except in a desperate ...
G. K. CHESTERTON
People generally quarrel because they can't argue.
G. K. CHESTERTON
There is a road from the eye to heart that does not go through the intellect.
G. K. CHESTERTON
If you are afraid of loneliness, don't marry.
G. K. CHESTERTON
Journalism largely consists of saying "Lord Jones is Dead" to people who never knew that Lord Jones ...
G. K. CHESTERTON
Women prefer to talk in twos, while men prefer to talk in threes.
G. K. CHESTERTON
A man does not know what he is saying until he knows what he is not saying.
G. K. CHESTERTON
The paradox of courage is that a man must be a little careless of his life in order to keep it.
G. K. CHESTERTON
I do not believe in a fate that falls on all men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that f...
G. K. CHESTERTON
The rich are the scum of the earth in every country.
G. K. CHESTERTON
Compromise used to mean that half a loaf was better than no bread. Among modern statesmen it really ...
G. K. CHESTERTON
There is a great deal of difference between an eager man who wants to read a book and the tired man ...
G. K. CHESTERTON
The thing I hate about an argument is that it always interrupts a discussion.
G. K. CHESTERTON
But a somewhat more liberal and sympathetic examination of mankind will convince us that the cross i...
G. K. CHESTERTON
Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.
G. K. CHESTERTON
All slang is a metaphor, and all metaphor is poetry.
G. K. CHESTERTON
I regard golf as an expensive way of playing marbles.
G. K. CHESTERTON
Certain new theologians dispute original sin, which is the only part of Christian theology which can...
G. K CHESTERTON
Music with dinner is an insult both to the cook and the violinist.
G K CHESTERTON
We are all in the same boat in a stormy sea, and we owe each other a terrible loyalty.
G. K. CHESTERTON
The object of a new year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul
G. K. CHESTERTON
A stiff apology is a second insult... The injured party does not want to be compensated because he h...
G. K. CHESTERTON
He may be mad, but there's method in his madness. There nearly always is method in madness. It's wha...
G. K. CHESTERTON
The men who really believe in themselves are all in lunatic asylums.
G. K. CHESTERTON
You can only find truth with logic if you have already found truth without it.
G. K. CHESTERTON
Truth must necessarily be stranger than fiction, for fiction is the creation of the human mind and t...
G. K. CHESTERTON
The traveler sees what he sees, the tourist see what he has come to see.
G. K. CHESTERTON
The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one's ow...
G. K. CHESTERTON
How you think when you lose determines how long it will be until you win.
G. K. CHESTERTON
Music with dinner is an insult both to the cook and the violinist.
G. K. CHESTERTON
Man seems to be capable of great virtues but not of small virtues; capable of defying his torturer b...
G. K. CHESTERTON
Journalism largely consists of saying 'Lord Jones is Dead' to people who never knew that Lord Jones ...
G. K. CHESTERTON
It is not bigotry to be certain we are right; but it is bigotry to be unable to imagine how we might...
G. K. CHESTERTON
If there were no God, there would be no Atheists.
G. K. CHESTERTON
I say that a man must be certain of his morality for the simple reason that he has to suffer for it.
G. K. CHESTERTON
I believe in getting into hot water; it keeps you clean.
G. K. CHESTERTON
Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.
G. K. CHESTERTON
Every man is important is he loses his life; and every man is funny if he loses his hat and has to r...
G. K. CHESTERTON
Don't ever take a fence down until you know the reason it was put up.
G. K. CHESTERTON
By a curious confusion, many modern critics have passed from the proposition that a masterpiece may ...
G. K. CHESTERTON
Beware of no man more than yourself; we carry our worst enemies within us.
G. K. CHESTERTON
Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.
G. K. CHESTERTON
An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly c...
G. K. CHESTERTON
"My country, right or wrong," is a thing that no patriot would think of saying except in a desperate...
G. K. CHESTERTON
Virtue is not the absense of vices or the avoidance of moral dangers; virtue is a vivid and separate...
G. K. CHESTERTON
Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another.
G. K. CHESTERTON
Happiness is a mystery like religion, and should never be rationalized.
G. K. CHESTERTON
Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy ...
G. K. CHESTERTON
The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens...
G. K. CHESTERTON
There is no such thing on earth as an uninteresting subject; the only thing that can exist is an uni...
G. K. CHESTERTON
There are no wise few. Every aristocracy that has ever existed has behaved, in all essential points,...
G. K. CHESTERTON