Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes

You can free things from alien or accidental laws, but not from the laws of their own nature. You may, if you like, free a tiger from his bars; but do not free him from his stripes.

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All conservatism is based upon the idea that if you leave things alone you leave them as they are. But you do not. If you leave a thing alone you leave it to a torrent of change.

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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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Marriage is an adventure, like going to war.

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None of the modern machines, none of the modern paraphernalia. . . have any power except over the people who choose to use them.

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Every politician is emphatically a promising politician.

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But the truth is that it is only by believing in God that we can ever criticise the Government. Once abolish the God, and the Government becomes the God.

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There are many definite methods, honest and dishonest, which make people rich; the only instinct I know of which does it is that instinct which theological Christianity crudely describes as the sin of avarice.

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Very few reputations are gained by unsullied virtue.

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When a man ceases to believe in god, he does not believe in nothing. He believes in everything.

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I might inform those humanitarians who have a nightmare of new and needless babies (for some humanitarians have that sort of horror of humanity) that if the recent decline in the birth-rate were continued for a certain time, it might end in there being no babies at all; which would console them very much.

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A feminist is someone who loathes being a woman and who dislikes the chief feminine characteristics.

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The new community which the capitalists are now constructing will be a very complete and absolute community; and one which will tolerate nothing really independent of itself.

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Every act of will is an act of self-limitation. To desire action is to desire limitation. In that sense, every act is an act of self-sacrifice. When you choose anything, you reject everything else.

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

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Paradox - Truth standing on her head to get attention.

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Boys like romantic tales; but babies like realistic tales-because they find them romantic.

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In the modern conflict between the Smile and the Laugh, I am all in favor of laughing. The recent stage of culture and criticism might very well be summed up as the men who smile criticizing the men who laugh.

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A teacher who is not dogmatic is simply a teacher who is not teaching.

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Jokes are generally honest. Complete solemnity is always dishonest.

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