Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes

Contemporary society has become dry, not for lack of wonders but for lack of wonder.

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You could compile the worst book in the world entirely out of selected passages from the best writers in the world.

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ONCE remove the old arena of theological quarrels, and you will throw open the whole world to the most horrible, the most hopeless, the most endless, the most truly interminable quarrels; the untheological quarrels.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , World Quotes , Arena Quotes

It is not funny that anything else should fall down; only that a man should fall down... Why do we laugh? Because it is a grave religious matter: it is the Fall of Man. Only man can be absurd: for only man can be dignified.

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It is hard to make government representative when it is also remote.

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A man does not know what he is saying until he knows what he is not saying.

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Bigotry may be roughly defined as the anger of men who have no opinions.

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The first fact about the celebration of a birthday is that it is a way of affirming defiantly, and even flamboyantly, that it is a good thing to be alive.

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All that we call spirit and art and ecstacy only means that for one awful instant we remember that we forgot.

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When people talk as if the Crusades were nothing more than an aggressive raid against Islam, they seem to forget in the strangest way that Islam itself was only an aggressive raid against the old and ordered civilization in these parts. I do not say it in mere hostility to the religion of Mahomet; I am fully conscious of many values and virtues in it; but certainly it was Islam that was the invasion and Christendom that was the thing invaded.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Civilization Quotes , People Quotes

Business, especially big business, is now organized like an army. It is, as some would say, a sort of mild militarism without bloodshed; as I say, a militarism without the military virtues.

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Any man who preaches real love is bound to beget hate. It is as true of democratic fraternity as a divine love; sham love ends in compromise and common philosophy; but real love has always ended in bloodshed.

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When learned men begin to use their reason, then I generally discover that they haven't got any.

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It is the beginning of all true criticism of our time to realize that it has really nothing to say, at the very moment when it has invented so tremendous a trumpet for saying it.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Power Quotes , Criticism Quotes

I like the Cyclostyle ink; it is so inky. I do not think there is anyone who takes quite such a fierce pleasure in things being themselves as I do. The startling wetness of water excites and intoxicates me: the fieriness of fire, the steeliness of steel, the unutterable muddiness of mud. It is just the same with people.... When we call a man "manly" or a woman "womanly" we touch the deepest philosophy.

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Civilization has run on ahead of the soul of man, and is producing faster than he can think and give thanks.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Running Quotes , Men Quotes

We are to regard existence as a raid or great adventure; it is to be judged, therefore, not by what calamities it encounters, but by what flag it follows and what high town it assaults. The most dangerous thing in the world is to be alive; one is always in danger of one's life. But anyone who shrinks from that is a traitor to the great scheme and experiment of being.

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We are passing into a social phase in which unless a heroic effort is made for human dignity and freedom, gold will be the sole method of government and therefore the sole standard of manners.

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The sincere love of books has nothing to do with cleverness or stupidity any more than any other sincere love. It is a quality of character, a freshness, a power of pleasure, a power of faith. A silly person may delight in reading masterpieces just as a silly person may delight in picking flowers. A fool may be in love with a poet as he may be in love with a woman.

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Feminists are those who cannot stand female characteristics.

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