Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes

Man knows that there are in the soul tints more bewildering, more numberless, and more nameless that the colors of an autumn forest....Yet he seriously believes that these things can every one of them , in all their tones and semi-tones, in all their blends and unions, be accurately represented by an arbitrary system of grunts and squeals. He believes that an ordinary civilized stockbroker can really produce out of his own inside noises which denote all the mysteries of memory and all the agonies of desire.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Memories Quotes , Believe 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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When some English moralists write about the importance of having character, they appear to mean only the importance of having a dull character.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Writing Quotes , Character Quotes

Anyone who is not an anarchist agrees with having a policeman at the corner of the street; but the danger at present is that of finding the policeman half-way down the chimney or even under the bed.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Bed Quotes , Half Quotes

It is not greedy to enjoy a good dinner, any more than it is to enjoy a good concert. But I do think there is something greedy about trying to enjoy the dinner and the concert at the same time.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Thinking Quotes , Greed Quotes

Oh, most unhappy man,' he cried, 'try to be happy! You have red hair like your sister.' My red hair, like red flames, shall burn up the world,' said Gregory.

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I came to the conclusion that the optimist thought everything good except the pessimist, and that the pessimist thought everything bad, except himself.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Perspective Quotes , Pessimist Quotes

It may be a mere patriotic bias, though I do not think so, but it seems to me that the English aristocracy is not only the type, but is the crown and flower of all actual aristocracies; it has all the oligarchical virtues as well as all the defects. It is casual, it is kind, it is courageous in obvious matters; but it has one great merit that overlaps even these. The great and very obvious merit of the English aristocracy is that nobody could possibly take it seriously.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Flower Quotes , Patriotic Quotes

It is impossible without humility to enjoy anything - even pride.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Humility Quotes , Pride Quotes

Poetry is sane because it floats easily in an infinite sea; reason seeks to cross the infinite sea and so make it finite. The result is mental exhaustion. To accept everything is an exercise, to understand everything a strain.

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What we call emancipation is always and of necessity simply the free choice of the soul between one set of limitations and another.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Choices Quotes , Soul Quotes

Catholic doctrine and discipline may be walls; but they are the walls of a playground.

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The first two facts which a healthy boy or girl feels about sex are these: first that it is beautiful and then that it is dangerous.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Love Quotes , Beautiful Quotes

Pessimism is not in being tired of evil but in being tired of good. Despair does not lie in being weary of suffering, but in being weary of joy. It is when for some reason or other good things in a society no longer work that the society begins to decline; when its food does not feed, when its cures do not cure, when its blessings refuse to bless.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Lying Quotes , Tired Quotes

Your offer," he said, "is far too idiotic to be declined.

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Free verse is like free love; it is a contradiction in terms.

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When it wishes anything done which is really serious, it collects twelve of the ordinary men standing round. The same thing was done, if I remember right, by the Founder of Christianity.

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

Christianity got over the difficulty of combining furious opposites, by keeping them both, and keeping them both furious.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Opposites Quotes , Balance Quotes

Sir Hiram Maxim is a genuine and typical example of the man of science, romantic, excitable, full of real but somewhat obvious poetry, a little hazy in logic and philosophy, but full of hearty enthusiasm and an honorable simplicity. He is, as he expresses it, "an old and trained engineer," and is like all of the old and trained engineers I have happened to come across, a man who indemnifies himself for the superhuman or inhuman concentration required for physical science by a vague and dangerous romanticism about everything else.

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Architecture approaches nearer than any other art to being irrevocable because it is so difficult to get rid of.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Art Quotes , Architecture Quotes