BOOK

Orthodoxy

• Creator: G.K. Chesterton
• Year: 1908
• Date: 15 May 2026

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Selected Quotes and Highlights

Any one setting out to dispute anything ought always to begin by saying what he does not dispute

Complete self-confidence is not merely a sin; complete self-confidence is a weakness.

The fairy tale discusses what a sane man will do in a mad world. The sober realistic novel of to-day discusses what an essential lunatic will do in a dull world.

If the madman could for an instant become careless, he would become sane

The man who cannot believe his senses, and the man who cannot believe anything else, are both insane, but their insanity is proved not by any error in their argument, but by the manifest mistake of their whole lives. They have both locked themselves up in two boxes, painted inside with the sun and stars; they are both unable to get out, the one into the health and happiness of heaven, the other even into the health and happiness of the earth.

The ordinary man has always been sane because the ordinary man has always been a mystic. He has permitted the twilight. He has always had one foot in earth and the other in fairyland

The whole secret of mysticism is this: that man can understand everything by the help of what he does not understand

Buddhism is centripetal, but Christianity is centrifugal: it breaks out

By asking for pleasure, he lost the chief pleasure; for the chief pleasure is surprise

A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed. Nowadays the part of a man that a man does assert is exactly the part he ought not to assert—himself

But the new rebel is a sceptic, and will not entirely trust anything. He has no loyalty; therefore he can never be really a revolutionist.

I am still as much concerned as ever about the Battle of Armageddon; but I am not so much concerned about the General Election

the things common to all men are more important than the things peculiar to any men.

This is the first principle of democracy: that the essential things in men are the things they hold in common, not the things they hold separately. And the second principle is merely this: that the political instinct or desire is one of these things which they hold in common

Keeping to one woman is a small price for so much as seeing one woman.

But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon

I had always vaguely felt facts to be miracles in the sense that they are wonderful: now I began to think them miracles in the stricter sense that they were wilful

I had always believed that the world involved magic: now I thought that perhaps it involved a magician

the proper form of thanks to it is some form of humility and restraint: we should thank God for beer and Burgundy by not drinking too much of them

the optimist thought everything good except the pessimist, and that the pessimist thought everything bad, except himself.

"An optimist is a man who looks after your eyes, and a pessimist is a man who looks after your feet."

They did not cultivate courage. They fought for the shrine, and found they had become courageous. They did not cultivate cleanliness. They purified themselves for the altar, and found that they were clean.

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

Christianity came into the world firstly in order to assert with violence that a man had not only to look inwards, but to look outwards, to behold with astonishment and enthusiasm a divine company and a divine captain

The only fun of being a Christian was that a man was not left alone with the Inner Light, but definitely recognised an outer light, fair as the sun, clear as the moon, terrible as an army with banners.

the root phrase for all Christian theism was this, that God was a creator, as an artist is a creator. A poet is so separate from his poem that he himself speaks of it as a little thing he has "thrown off." Even in giving it forth he has flung it away. This principle that all creation and procreation is a breaking off is at least as consistent through the cosmos as the evolutionary principle that all growth is a branching out

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;

modern philosopher had told me again and again that I was in the right place, and I had still felt depressed even in acquiescence. But I had heard that I was in the wrong place, and my soul sang for joy, like a bird in spring.

whenever we feel there is something odd in Christian theology, we shall generally find that there is something odd in the truth

For orthodox theology has specially insisted that Christ was not a being apart from God and man, like an elf, nor yet a being half human and half not, like a centaur, but both things at once and both things thoroughly, very man and very God

Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die

In so far as I am Man I am the chief of creatures. In so far as I am a man I am the chief of sinners

For if there is a wall between you and the world, it makes little difference whether you describe yourself as locked in or as locked out

Can the lion lie down with the lamb and still retain his royal ferocity? That is the problem the Church attempted; that is the miracle she achieved.

There is no equality in nature; also there is no inequality in nature. Inequality, as much as equality, implies a standard of value

The modern young man will never change his environment; for he will always change his mind.

The main point of Christianity was this: that Nature is not our mother: Nature is our sister. We can be proud of her beauty, since we have the same father; but she has no authority over us; we have to admire, but not to imitate

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

Only the Christian Church can offer any rational objection to a complete confidence in the rich. For she has maintained from the beginning that the danger was not in man's environment, but in man

The whole case for Christianity is that a man who is dependent upon the luxuries of this life is a corrupt man, spiritually corrupt, politically corrupt, financially corrupt

it is quite certainly un-Christian to trust the rich, to regard the rich as more morally safe than the poor

It is easy to be heavy: hard to be light. Satan fell by the force of gravity

I want to love my neighbour not because he is I, but precisely because he is not I.

sham love ends in compromise and common philosophy; but real love has always ended in bloodshed

According to Himself the Son was a sword separating brother and brother that they should for an æon hate each other. But the Father also was a sword, which in the black beginning separated brother and brother, so that they should love each other at last.

that the Christian Church in its practical relation to my soul is a living teacher, not a dead one

The man who lives in contact with what he believes to be a living Church is a man always expecting to meet Plato and Shakespeare to-morrow at breakfast. He is always expecting to see some truth that he has never seen before

This, therefore, is, in conclusion, my reason for accepting the religion and not merely the scattered and secular truths out of the religion. I do it because the thing has not merely told this truth or that truth, but has revealed itself as a truth-telling thing

To the question, "What are you?" I could only answer, "God knows." And to the question, "What is meant by the Fall?" I could answer with complete sincerity, "That whatever I am, I am not myself."

There was something that He hid from all men when He went up a mountain to pray. There was something that He covered constantly by abrupt silence or impetuous isolation. There was some one thing that was too great for God to show us when He walked upon our earth; and I have sometimes fancied that it was His mirth

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