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The Frenchman works until he can play. The American works until he can’t play and then thanks the devil, his master, that he is donkey enough to die in harness. But the Englishman, as he has since become, works until he can pretend that he never worked at all.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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Gilbert K. Chesterton
Age: 62 †
Born: 1874
Born: May 29
Died: 1936
Died: June 14
Autobiographer
Biographer
Crime Writer
Essayist
Historian
Illustrator
Journalist
Literary Historian
Novelist
Opinion Journalist
Philosopher
Beaconsfield
Buckinghamshire
Gilbert Keith Chesterton
Gilbert K. Chesterton
Gilbert Chesterton
G.K. Chesterton
G. K. C.
Works
Harness
Since
Englishmen
Dies
Pretend
American
Thanks
Become
Master
Frenchman
Play
Devil
Frenchmen
Enough
Worked
Englishman
Never
Masters
Donkey

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Sticking to one woman is a small price to pay for so much as having seen one woman.
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I have myself a poetical enthusiasm for pigs, and the paradise of my fancy is one where pigs have wings. But it is only men, especially wise men, who discuss whether pigs can fly we have no particular proof that pigs ever discuss it.
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The more truly we can see life as a fairytale, the more clearly the tale resolves itself into war with the dragon who is wasting fairyland.
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Evil always wins through the strength of its splendid dupes and there has in all ages been a disastrous alliance between abnormal innocence and abnormal sin.
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When a politician is in opposition he is an expert on the means to some end and when he is in office he is an expert on the obstacles to it.
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It is always the secure who are humble.
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Just at present you only see the tree by the light of the lamp. I wonder when you would ever see the lamp by the light of the tree.
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Large organization is loose organization. Nay, it would be almost as true to say that organization is always disorganization.
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St Thomas (Aqinas) loved books and lived on books... When asked for what he thanked God most, he answered simply, ‘I have understood every page I ever read’.
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Students of popular science... are always insisting that Christianity and Buddhism are very much alike, especially Buddhism. This is generally believed, and I believed it myself until I read a book giving the reasons for it.
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The true object of all human life is play. Earth is a task garden heaven is a playground.
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In the glad old days, before the rise of modern morbidities...it used to be thought a disadvantage to be misunderstood.
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Odd, isn't it, that a thief and a vagabond should repent, when so many who are rich and secure remain hard and frivolous, and without fruit for God or man?
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The strangest whim has seized me ... After all I think I will not hang myself today.
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It is not bigotry to be certain we are right but it is bigotry to be unable to imagine how we might possibly have gone wrong.
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The free man owns himself. He can damage himself with either eating or drinking he can ruin himself with gambling. If he does he is certainly a damn fool, and he might possibly be a damned soul but if he may not, he is not a free man any more than a dog.
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The person who is really in revolt is the optimist, who generally lives and dies in a desperate and suicidal effort to persuade other people how good they are.
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The more I considered Christianity, the more I found that while it had established a rule and order, the chief aim of that order was to give room for good things to run wild.
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People decided that it was impossible to achieve any of the good of Socialism, but they comforted themselves by achieving all the bad.
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