Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes

The custom of the Church has very great authority and ought to be jealously observed in all things.

The Church must persist in the teaching transmitted to her by Christ.

Latins are predisposed to thinking about the past. Catholicism has a lot to do with it because Catholicism is a contemplation of the past, of symbols that are supposed to be eternally present.

On the day I was born, or possibly on one of the following days, my father went on a walk in the forested hills and thought of a name for me. His first son was called Daniel, and Samuel in memory of one of his forefathers.

The main threat to freedom comes from church ministers who depend upon fear and superstitions to gain and to keep power

The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas — uncertainty, progress, change — into crimes.

I grew up Catholic, so I had a more traditional relationship with religion.

The Bible, undoubtedly, is a mixed bag. I don't see myself coming back to the Church. I do like the tradition. If you come from a strong culture, you can decide what you agree with and what you don't agree with. If you're given a blank canvas, it's almost harder in life.

The preaching is part of the reason I don't go to church. Plus, I don't know, it was never part of my tradition.

The Sabbath, as now recognized and enforced, is one of the main pillars of Priestcraft and Superstition, and the stronghold of a merely ceremonial Religion.

What is held by the whole Church, and that not as instituted by Councils, but as a matter of invariable custom, is rightly held to have been handed down by authority.

It is superstitious to put one's hopes in formalities, but arrogant to refuse to submit to them.

Some people have a fear of rejecting all the security that comes with family, church and state. They become fundamentalists.

I still believe in getting married in churches and baptizing children. I go through those motions.

The Church of Christ, zealous and cautious guardian of the dogmas deposited with it, never changes any phase of them. It does not diminish them or add to them; it neither trims what seems necessary now grafts things superfluous . . . but it devotes all its diligence to one aim: To treat tradition faithfully and wisely; to consolidate and to strengthen what already was clear; and to guard what already was confirmed and defined.

Much of today’s church relies more on a book the early church didn't have, than the Holy Spirit they did.

Granddad was superstitious about books. He thought that if you had enough of them around, education leaked out, like radioactivity.

You all know that certain things are necessary to make a religion. First of all, there is the book. The power of the book is simply marvellous! Whatever it be, the book is the centre round which human allegiance gathers. Not one religion is living today but has a book. With all its rationalism and tall talk, humanity still clings to the books. In your country every attempt to start a religion without a book has failed. In India sects rise with great success, but within a few years they die down, because there is no book behind them. So in every other country.

Put away the book, the description, the tradition, the authority, and take the journey of self-discovery. Love, and don't be caught in opinions and ideas about what love is or should be. When you love, everything will come right. Love has its own action.

The worlds of folklore and religion were so mingled in early twentieth venture German culture that even families who didn't go to church were often deeply Christian.

None of my patients are really troubled by the idea that some part of what they say might be in a book in the future. Some have expressed the very opposite feeling--the fear that they would not be interesting enough to write about.

It can be exalting to belong to a church that is five hundred years behind the times and sublimely indifferent to fashion; it is mortifying to belong to a church that is five minutes behind the times, huffing and puffing to catch up.

Paul commands: 'Therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold the Traditions which you have been taught, whether by word or by our letter.' From this it is clear that they did not hand down everything by letter, but there is much also that was not written. Like that which was written, the unwritten too is worthy of belief. So let us regard the Tradition of the Church also as worthy of belief. Is it a Tradition? Seek no further.

Put away the book, the description, the tradition, the authority, and take the journey of self-discovery.

In the 16th century, [Niccolò] Machiavelli - in an attempt to get back in the good graces of the powerful - wrote a slim volume called The Prince. In that book he showed the powers that be how to control the people. That book is a statement: separate and rule, divide and conquer. That's five hundred years ago and it still works, because we allow ourselves to be lead around with holes through our noses.