Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes

The sceptic ultimately undermines democracy (1) because he can see no significance in death and such things of a literal equality; (2) because he introduces different first principles, making debate impossible: and debate is the life of democracy; (3) because the fading of the images of sacred persons leaves a man too prone to be a respecter of earthly persons; (4) because there will be more, not less, respect for human rights if they can be treated as divine rights.

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

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Whatever else may be said of man, this one thing is clear: He is not what he is capable of being.

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People that insist upon drinking and driving, are putting the quart before the hearse.

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You may think a crime horrible because you could never commit it. I think it is horrible because I could commit it.

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The only people who seem to have nothing to do with the education of the children are the parents.

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The more I considered Christianity, the more I found that while it had established a rule and order, the chief aim of that order was to give room for good things to run wild.

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Great truths can only be forgotten and can never be falsified.

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The Reformer is always right about what's wrong. However, he's often wrong about what is right.

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We're all in the same boat, and we're all seasick.

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For my part, I should be inclined to suggest that the chief object of education should be to restore simplicity. If you like to put it so, the chief object of education is not to learn things; nay, the chief object of education is to unlearn things.

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Odd, isn't it, that a thief and a vagabond should repent, when so many who are rich and secure remain hard and frivolous, and without fruit for God or man?

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In a world flagrant with the failures of civilization, what is there particularly immortal about our own?

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And it is always the humble man who talks too much; the proud man watches himself too closely.

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The only words that ever satisfied me as describing nature are the terms used in fairy books, charm, spell, enchantment; they express the arbitrariness of the fact and its mystery.

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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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...but out of the desert, from the dry places and the dreadful suns, come the cruel children of the lonely God; the real Unitarians who with scimitar in hand have laid waste the world. For it is not well for God to be alone.

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You can't have the family farm without the family.

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Surprise is the secret of joy.

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Who would condescend to strike down the mere things that he does not fear? Who would debase himself to be merely brave, like any common prizefighter? Who would stoop to be fearless--like a tree? Fight the thing that you fear. You remember the old tale of the English clergyman who gave the last rites to the brigand of Sicily, and how on his death-bed the great robber said, 'I can give you no money, but I can give you advice for a lifetime: your thumb on the blade, and strike upwards.' So I say to you, strike upwards, if you strike at the stars.

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