Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes

Men spoke much in my boyhood about restricted or ruined men of genius: and it was common to say that many a man was a Great Might-Have-Been. To me it's a more solid and startling fact that any man in the street is a Great Might-Not-Have-Been.

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

A man making the confession of any creed worth ten minutes' intelligent talk, is always a man who gains something and gives up something. So long as he does both he can create: for he is making an outline and a shape.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Giving Up Quotes , Wine Quotes

A man who says that no patriot should attack the Boer War until it is over is not worth answering intelligently; he is saying that no good son should warn his mother off a cliff until she has fallen over it.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Mother Quotes , Peace Quotes

But those dealing in the actual manufacture of mind are dealing in a very explosive material. The material is not merely the clay of which man is master, but the truths or semblances of truth which have a certain mastery over man. The material is explosive because it must be taken seriously. The men writing books really are throwing bombs.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Book Quotes , Taken Quotes

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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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Government Quotes , Effort Quotes

Each generation is converted by the saint who contradicts it most.

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There are no boring subjects, only disinterested minds.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Mind Quotes , Boring Quotes

There is a certain poetic value, and that a genuine one, in this sense of having missed the full meaning of things. There is beauty, not only in wisdom, but in this dazed and dramatic ignorance.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Ignorance Quotes , Poetic Quotes

Democracy is reproached with saying that the majority is always right. But progress says that the minority is always right.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Democracy Quotes , Progress Quotes

Every one on this earth should believe, amid whatever madness or moral failure, that his life and temperament have some object on the earth. 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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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Believe Quotes , Giving Quotes

If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.

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There are a good many fools who call me a friend, and also a good many friends who call me a fool.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Funny Friendship Quotes , Good Man Quotes

When a politician is in opposition he is an expert on the means to some end; and when he is in office he is an expert on the obstacles to it.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Mean Quotes , Office Quotes

Modern science is necessarily a double-edged tool, a tool that cuts both ways. ... There is no doubt that a Zeppelin is a wonderful thing; but that did not prevent it from becoming a horrible thing.

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I agree with the realistic Irishman who said he preferred to prophesy after the event.

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To be simple is the best thing in the world.

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A great man knows he is not God, and the greater he is the better he knows it.

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

...the primary paradox that man is superior to all the things around him and yet is at their mercy.

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

Of all modern notions, the worst is this: that domesticity is dull. Inside the home, they say, is dead decorum and routine; outside is adventure and variety. But the truth is that the home is the only place of liberty, the only spot on earth where a man can alter arrangements suddenly, make an experiment or indulge in a whim. The home is not the one tame place in a world of adventure; it is the one wild place in a world of rules and set tasks.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Home Quotes , Adventure Quotes

And all over the world, the old literature, the popular literature, is the same. It consists of very dignified sorrow and very undignified fun. Its sad tales are of broken hearts; its happy tales are of broken heads.

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