On Love:

Why be something to everybody when you can be everything to somebody?

Life exists for the love of music or beautiful things.

The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost.

To love means loving the unlovable – or it is no virtue at all.

Forgiveness, Faith, and Hope:

To forgive means pardoning the unpardonable.

Faith means believing the unbelievable.

Hope means hoping when everything seems hopeless.

On Charity and Hope: 

Charity is the power of defending that which we know to be indefensible.

Hope is the power of being cheerful in circumstances which we know to be desperate.

It is true that there is a state of hope which belongs to bright prospects and the morning; but that is not the virtue of hope.

The virtue of hope exists only in earthquake and eclipse.

It is true that there is a thing crudely called charity, which means charity to the deserving poor; but charity to the deserving is not charity at all, but justice.

It is the undeserving who require it and the ideal either does not exist at all or exists wholly for them.

For practical purposes, it is at the hopeless moment that we require the hopeful man and the virtue either does not exist at all or begins to exist at that moment.

Exactly at the instant when hope ceases to be reasonable it begins to be useful.

Gilbert Keith Chesterton (29 May 1874 – 14 June 1936) was a British writer whose prolific and diverse output included works of philosophy, ontology, poetry, play writing, journalism, public lecturing and debating, literary and art criticism, biography, Christian apologetics, and fiction, including fantasy and detective fiction. He has been called the “prince of paradox.” [Wikipedia]

Note:  I do not know the preferred nickname for G. K. Chesterton but I hope he does not mind that I gave him one.   I thought “Gil” fitted him better than did “Bertie.”  I hope you agree.  [MBP]