Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes

I have formed a very clear conception of patriotism. I have generally found it thrust into the foreground by some fellow who has something to hide in the background. I have seen a great deal of patriotism; and I have generally found it the last refuge of the scoundrel.

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We have all forgotten what we really are. All that we call common sense and rationality and practicality and positivism only means that for certain dead levels of our life we forget that we have forgotten. All that we call spirit and art and ecstasy only means that for one awful instant we remember that we forget.

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A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.

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Think of all those ages through which men have had the courage to die, and then remember that we have actually fallen to talking about having the courage to live.

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Man seems to be capable of great virtues but not of small virtues; capable of defying his torturer but not of keeping his temper.

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People generally quarrel because they cannot argue.

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We need to be reminded more than we need to be instructed

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If, therefore, nonsense is really to be the literature of the future, it must have its own version of the Cosmos to offer; the world must not only be tragic, romantic, and religious, it must be nonsensical also.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Religious Quotes , Cosmos Quotes

children are simply human beings who are allowed to do what everyone else really desires to do, as for instance, to fly kites, or when seriously wronged to emit prolonged screams for several minutes.

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

You've got that eternal idiotic idea that if anarchy came it would come from the poor. Why should it? The poor have been rebels, but they have never been anarchists; they have more interest than any one else in there being some decent government. The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes been objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all. Aristocrats were always anarchists, as you can see from the barons' wars.

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It is always the secure who are humble.

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Modern broad-mindedness benefits the rich; and benefits nobody else.

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The worst moment for an atheist is when he feels a profound sense of gratitude and has no one to thank.

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The woman does not work because the man tells her to work and she obeys. On the contrary, the woman works because she has told the man to work and he hasn’t obeyed.

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A man does not know what he is saying until he knows what he is not saying.

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If a man only likes victory he must always come late for the battle.

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There again," said Syme irritably, "what is there poetical about being in revolt? You might as well say that it is poetical to be sea-sick. Being sick is a revolt. Both being sick and being rebellious may be the wholesome thing on certain desperate occasions; but I'm hanged if I can see why they are poetical...It is things going right," he cried, "that is poetical! Our digestions, for instance, going sacredly and silently right, that is the foundation of all poetry...the most poetical thing in the world is not being sick.

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There are no words to express the abyss between isolation and having one ally. It may be conceded to the mathematician that four is twice two. But two is not twice one; two is two thousand times one.

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The unconscious democracy of America is a very fine thing. It is a true and deep and instinctive assumption of the equality of citizens, which even voting and elections have not destroyed.

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Precisely because our political speeches are meant to be reported, they are not worth reporting. Precisely because they are carefully designed to be read, nobody reads them.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Political Quotes , Speech Quotes