Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes

An optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves.

The world is divided into two classes, those who believe the incredible, and those who do the improbable.

The optimist says, ‘this is the best of all possible worlds.’ The pessimist considers that statement for a while and then says, ‘Yes, you are right.’

I am not the opposite of theism. I am right in the middle of those non-believers and believers. It's not even about being agnostic or nastik. Why would I take a name given to me by my opposition? I am just a rationalist.

I would say that, between us, I tend to be a little bit more philosophically optimistic. Jonah, I think he sees things as more finite.

To describe religions as mind viruses is sometimes interpreted as contemptuous or even hostile. It is both. I am often asked why I am so hostile to organized religion.

Hope was an instinct only the reasoning human mind could kill. An animal never knew despair.

We cannot point to a single definitive solution of any one of the problems that confront us — political, economic, social or moral, that is, having to do with the conduct of life. We are still beginners, and for that reason may hope to improve. To deride the hope of progress is the ultimate fatuity, the last word in poverty of spirit and meanness of mind. There is no need to be dismayed by the fact that we cannot yet envisage a definitive solution of our problems, a resting-place beyond which we need not try to go.

Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is no more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifiying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory to itself than this thing called Christianity.

Keep clear of psychiatrists unless you know that they are also Christians. Otherwise they start with the assumption that your religion is an illusion and try to 'cure' it: and this assumption they make not as professional psychologists but as amateur philosophers.

If Christianity is pessimistic as to man, it is optimistic as to human destiny. Well, I can say that, pessimistic as to human destiny, I am optimistic as to man.

I usually don't get too bogged down with my personal problems because that's a one-way street if you get yourself into a negative frame of mind and only see the dark side of life.

Your mind creates your reality. If you expect nothing, you open up the universe to give you options. If you expect the worst, you usually get it.

Don't let them fool ya, or even try to school ya! Oh, no! We've got a mind of our own, so go to hell if what you're thinking is not right!

Man is more himself, man is more manlike, when Joy is the fundamental thing in him, and Grief the superficial. Melancholy should be an innocent interlude, a tender and fugitive state of mind; Praise should be the permanent pulsation of the soul. Pessimism is at best an emotional half-holiday; Joy is the uproarious labor by which all things live? Christianity satisfies suddenly and perfectly man's ancestral instinct for being the right way up; satisfies it supremely in this, that by its creed Joy becomes something gigantic, and Sadness something special and small.

Imagine a set of people all living in the same building. Half of them think it is a hotel, the other half think it is a prison. Those who think it a hotel might regard it as quite intolerable, and those who thought it was a prison might decide that it was really surprisingly comfortable. So that what seems the ugly doctrine is one that comforts and strengthens you in the end. The people who try to hold an optimistic view of this world would become pessimists: the people who hold a pretty stern view of it become optimistic.

I am not a pessimist but a pejorist (as George Eliot said she was not an optimist but a meliorist); and that philosophy is founded on my observation of the world, not on anything so trivial and irrelevant as personal history.

If you look at the science that describes what is happening on earth today and aren't pessimistic, you don’t have the correct data. If you meet the people in this unnamed movement and aren't optimistic, you haven’t got a heart.

Are you a Tigger or an Eeyore?

Positive minds produce positive lives. Negative minds produce negative lives. Positive thoughts are always full of faith and hope. Negative thoughts are always full of fear and doubt.

There is always a part of my mind that is preparing for the worst, and another part of my mind that believes if I prepare enough for it, the worst won’t happen.

If you listen to Barack Obama, if you listen to Hillary Clinton, they're portraying Donald Trump as this deep, dark, dividing, dank presence that sees America as dwindling away and failing and everybody's in bad shape. They think they're the paragons of optimism.

Creeds matter very little... The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true. So I elect for neither label.

Everything's a conspiracy and everything's not a conspiracy. You could look at this planet and go, "This is all a conspiracy. God made this to test us to see if we'll use the nukes." You can let your mind believe anything.

Things are going downhill with you!' he said to himself, and laughed about it, and as he was saying it, he happened to glance at the river, and he also saw the river going downhill, always moving on downhill, and singing and being happy through it all.