9 Gilbert Keith Chesterton Quotes on Politics

Gilbert Keith Chesterton quotes on politics

7. He is only a very shallow critic who cannot see an eternal rebel in the heart of the Conservative.

31. All government is an ugly necessity.

32. 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.

33. It is terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged.

37. The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected.

68. 'My country, right or wrong' is a thing that no patriot would think of saying, except in a desperate case. It is like saying, 'My mother, drunk or sober'.

89. The oligarchic character of the modern English commonwealth does not rest, like many oligarchies, on the cruelty of the rich to the poor. It does not even rest on the kindness of the rich to the poor. It rests on the perennial and unfailing kindness of the poor to the rich.

114. For fear of the newspapers politicians are dull, and at last they are too dull even for the newspapers. The speeches in our time are more careful and elaborate, because they are meant to be read, and not to be heard. And exactly because they are more careful and elaborate, they are not so likely to be worthy of a careful and elaborate report. They are not interesting enough. So the moral cowardice of modern politicians has, after all, some punishment attached to it by the silent anger of heaven. Precisely because our political speeches are meant to be reported, they are not worth reporting. Precisely because they are carefully designed to be read, nobody reads them.

182. In the city built upon slime and loam, They cry in their Parliament, 'Who goes home?' And there comes no answer in arch or dome, For none in the city of graves goes home. Yet these shall perish and understand, For God has pity on this great land.