Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes

A nation is not going mad when it does extravagant things, so long as it does them in an extravagant spirit. But whenever we see things done wildly, but taken tamely, then the State is growing insane.

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The only defensible war is a war of defense.

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Price is a crazy and incalculable thing, while Value is an intrinsic and indestructible thing.

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There are two kinds of charlatan: the man who is called a charlatan, and the man who really is one. The first is the quack who cures you; the second is the highly qualified person who doesn't.

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Liberty is the very last idea that seems to occur to anybody, in considering any political or social proposal. It is only necessary for anybody for any reason to allege any evidence of any evil in any human practice, for people instantly to suggest that the practice should be suppressed by the police.

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The men who really believe in themselves are all in lunatic asylums.

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Surely we cannot take an open question like the supernatural and shut it with a bang, turning the key of the madhouse on all the mystics of history. You cannot take the region of the unknown and calmly say that, though you know nothing about it, you know all the gates are locked. We do not know enough about the unknown to know that it is unknowable.

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It is very good for a man to talk about what he does not understand; as long as he understands that he does not understand it.

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In the end it will not matter to us whether we wrote well or ill; whether we fought with flails or reeds. It will matter to us greatly on what side we fought.

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It is still bad taste to be an avowed atheist. But now it is equally bad taste to be an avowed Christian.

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The great misfortune of the modern English is not at all that they are more boastful than other people (they are not); it is that they are boastful about those particular things which nobody can boast of without losing them.

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

The outer ring of Christianity is a rigid guard of ethical abnegations and professional priests; but inside that inhuman guard you will find the old human life dancing like children and drinking wine like men; for Christianity is the only frame for pagan freedom. But in the modern philosophy the case is opposite; it is its outer ring that is obviously artistic and emancipated; its despair is within.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Children Quotes , Philosophy Quotes

For us who live in cities Nature is not natural. Nature is supernatural. Just as monks watched and strove to get a glimpse of heaven, so we watch and strive to get a glimpse of earth. It is as if men had cake and wine every day but were sometimes allowed common bread.

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Aesthetes never do anything but what they are told.

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All good writers express the state of their souls, even (as occurs in some cases of very good writers) if it is a state of damnation.

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We have not made cricket and football [soccer] professional because of any astonishing avarice or new vulgarity. We have made them professional because we would have them perfect. We have dedicated men to them as to some god of inhuman excellence. We care more for football than for the fun of playing football.

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In Catholicism, the pint, the pipe and the Cross can all fit together.

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Christendom has had a series of revolutions and in each one of them Christianity has died. Christianity has died many times and risen again; for it had a God who knew the way out of the grave.

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Vigorous organisms talk not about their processes, but about their aims.

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Art consists of limitation. The most beautiful part of every picture is the frame.

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