Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes

Character is in turn the enduring source of virtue. It stands by itself and excites admiration in others. It is not obedience to authority, and while it is often consistent with and reinforced by religious belief, it is not piety.

I have seen men incapable of the sciences, but never any incapable of virtue.

...virtue is not merely a state in conformity with the right principle, but one that implies the right principle; and the right principle in moral conduct is prudence.

Character, to me, is the life's blood of fiction.

The whole history of man is continuous proof of the maxim that to divest one's methods of ethical concepts means to sink into the depths of utter demoralization.

To do evil for good is human corruption; to do good for good is civil retribution; but to do good for evil is Christian perfection. Though this be not the grace of nature, it is the nature of grace.

True knowledge gives a moral standing and moral strength.

Virtue is not always amiable.

The greatest work in all the world is the building of men and women of character. Without character there is not much that is worthwhile.

Virtue and decency are so nearly related that it is difficult to separate them from each other but in our imagination.

What is the real relation between happiness and goodness? It is only within a few generations that men have found courage to say that there is none.

To be good and disagreeable is high treason against the royalty of virtue.

We know that the exercise of virtue should be its own reward, and it seems to follow that the enduring of it on the part of the patient should be its own punishment.

The sum of all is, if we would most truly enjoy this gift of Heaven, let us become a virtuous people.

The only reward of virtue is virtue.

Of all the things of a man's soul which he has within him, justice is the greatest good and injustice the greatest evil.

It still remains true that no justification of virtue will enable a man to be virtuous.

I have yet to meet a man as fond of high moral conduct as he is of outward appearances.

The act of defending any of the cardinal virtues has today all the exhilaration of a vice.

The moral sense is the first excellence of well-organized man.

Little would be wanting to the happiness of life, if every man could conform to the right as soon as he was shown it.

After all, why be good? How many will actually believe it of us?

Virtue is more to man than either water or fire. I have seen men die from treading on water and fire, but I have never seen a man die from treading the course of virtue.

Without virtue, happiness cannot be.