Authors / G. K. Chesterton

G. K. Chesterton quotes

1874–1936 · English writer and critic

Chesterton, a huge man with a cape and a sword-stick, wrote paradoxes the way other people breathe. He is also the most-cited source for things he didn't say.

1 real · 2 not theirs

Really theirs

1 quotes traced to G. K. Chesterton's own work or a reliable witness.

Sourced

If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.

Source: What's Wrong with the World (1910)

Not theirs

2 famous lines credited to G. K. Chesterton that are misquoted, unsourced or belong to someone else.

Misquoted

Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.

The real words: Neil Gaiman's paraphrase (in Coraline, 2002) of Chesterton's essay "The Red Angel" in Tremendous Trifles (1909).

Not theirs

When men stop believing in God they don't believe in nothing; they believe in anything.

Actually: A summary of Chesterton's ideas by Émile Cammaerts (1937), not Chesterton's own sentence.