Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes

I never said a word against eminent men of science. What I complain of is a vague popular philosophy which supposes itself to be scientific when it is really nothing but a sort of new religion and an uncommonly nasty one. When people talked about the fall of man, they knew they were talking about a mystery, a thing they didn't understand. Now they talk about the survival of the fittest: they think they do understand it, whereas they have not merely no notion, they have an elaborately false notion of what the words mean.

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

They said that I should lose my ideals and begin to believe in the methods of practical politicians. Now, I have not lost my ideals in the least; my faith in fundamentals is exactly what it always was. What I have lost is my childlike faith in practical politics.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Believe Quotes , Fundamentals Quotes

A detective story generally describes six living men discussing how it is that a man is dead. A modern philosophic story generally describes six dead men discussing how any man can possibly be alive.

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The people has no definite disbelief in the temples of theology. The people has a very fiery and practical disbelief in the temples of physical science.

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The trouble with always trying to preserve the health of the body is that it is so difficult to do without destroying the health of the mind.

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Classic literature is still something that hangs in the air like a song.

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The dignity of the artist lies in his duty of keeping awake the sense of wonder in the world.

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Why be something to everybody when you can be everything to somebody?

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The power which makes a man able to entertain a good impulse is the same as that which enables him to make a good gun; it is imagination.

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If the world becomes pagan and perishes, the last man left alive would do well to quote the Iliad and die.

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

The sane man knows that he has a touch of the beast, a touch of the devil, a touch of the saint, a touch of the citizen. Nay, the really sane man knows that he has a touch of the madman.

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The most incredible thing about miracles is that they happen.

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Journalism only tells us what men are doing; it is fiction that tells us what they are thinking, and still more what they are feeling. If a new scientific theory finds the soul of a man in his dreams, at least it ought not to leave out his day-dreams. And all fiction is only a diary of day-dreams instead of days. And this profound preoccupation of men's minds with certain things always eventually has an effect even on the external expression of the age.

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

Government has become ungovernable; that is, it cannot leave off governing. Law has become lawless; that is, it cannot see where laws should stop. The chief feature of our time is the meekness of the mob and the madness of the government.

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There are no boring subjects, only disinterested minds.

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

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The home is not the one tame place in the world of adventure. It is the one wild place in the world of rules and set tasks.

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Unless a man becomes the enemy of an evil, he will not even become its slave but rather its champion.

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A man running after a hat is not half so ridiculous as a man running after a woman.

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It is quite an old-fashioned fallacy to suppose that our objection to scepticism is that it removes the discipline from life. Our objection to scepticism is that it removes the motive power. Materialism is not a thing which destroys mere restraint. Materialism itself is the great restraint.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Discipline Quotes , Materialism Quotes