Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes

A modern vegetarian is also a teetotaler, yet there is no obvious connection between consuming vegetables and not consuming fermented vegetables. A drunkard, when lifted laboriously out of the gutter, might well be heard huskily to plead that he had fallen there through excessive devotion to a vegetable diet.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Vegetables Quotes , Connections Quotes

It is unpardonable conceit not to laugh at your own jokes. Joking is undignified; that is why it is so good for one's soul. Do not fancy you can be a detached wit and avoid being a buffoon; you cannot. If you are the Court Jester you must be the Court Fool.

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One of the great disadvantages of hurry is that it takes such a long time.

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Drink because you are happy, but never because you are miserable. Never drink when you are wretched without it, or you will be like the grey-faced gin-drinker in the slum; but drink when you would be happy without it, and you will be like the laughing peasant of Italy. Never drink because you need it, for this is rational drinking, and the way to death and hell. But drink because you do not need it, for this is irrational drinking, and the ancient health of the world.

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The person who is really in revolt is the optimist, who generally lives and dies in a desperate and suicidal effort to persuade other people how good they are.

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

People wonder why the novel is the most popular form of literature; people wonder why it is read more than books of science or books of metaphysics. The reason is very simple; it is merely that the novel is more true than they are.

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All architecture is great architecture after sunset.

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I would give a woman not more rights, but more privileges. Instead of sending her to seek such freedom as notoriously prevails in banks and factories, I would design specially a house in which she can be free.

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The good Bishop of Assisi expressed a sort of horror at the hard life which the Little Brothers lived at the Portiuncula, without comforts, without possessions, eating anything they could get and sleeping anyhow on the ground. St. Francis answered him with that curious and almost stunning shrewdness which the unworldly can sometimes wield like a club of stone. He said, 'If we had any possessions, we should need weapons and laws to defend them.

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Democracy is like blowing your nose. You may not do it well, but it's something you ought to do yourself.

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Stick to the man who looks out of the window and tries to understand the world. Keep clear of the man who looks in at the window and tries to understand you.

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Every one on the earth should believe that he has something to give to the world which cannot otherwise be given.

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Whatever the word "great" means, Dickens was what it means.

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The cause which is blocking all progress today is the subtle scepticism which whispers in a million ears that things are not good enough to be worth improving. If the world is good we are revolutionaries, if the world is evil we must be conservatives. These essays, futile as they are considered as serious literature, are yet ethically sincere, since they seek to remind men that things must be loved first and improved afterwards.

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The modern world is a crowd of very rapid racing cars all brought to a standstill and stuck in a block of traffic.

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A man looking at a hippopotamus may sometimes be tempted to regard a hippopotamus as an enormous mistake; but he is also bound to confess that a fortunate inferiority prevents him personally from making such mistakes.

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

The trouble with Christianity is, not that its failed, but that it's never been tried . . . not that it can't remake the world, but that it's difficult.

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One must somehow find a way of loving the world without trusting it; somehow one must love the world without being worldly.

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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

In matters of truth the fact that you don't want to publish something is, nine times out of ten, a proof that you ought to publish it.

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