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

It is one thing to describe an interview with a gorgon or a griffin, a creature who does not exist. It is another thing to discover that the rhinoceros does exist and then take pleasure in the fact that he looks as if he didn't.

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Man must have just enough faith in himself to have adventures, and just enough doubt of himself to enjoy them.

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The criminal is the creative artist; the detective only the critic.

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I have no right to think for myself. I have no right to think at all.

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By experts in poverty I do not mean sociologists, but poor men.

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A man cannot have the energy to produce good art without having the energy to wish to pass beyond it.

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But since he stood for England And knew what England means, Unless you give him bacon You must not give him beans.

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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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Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another.

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Destiny is but a phrase of the weak human heart - the dark apology for every error. The strong and virtuous admit no destiny. On earth conscience guides; in heaven God watches. And destiny is but the phantom we invoke to silence the one and dethrone the other.

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Not only does "orthodox" no longer mean being right, it practically means being wrong.

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Folk-lore means that the soul is sane, but that the universe is wild and full of marvels. Realism means that the world is dull and full of routine, but that the soul is sick and screaming. The problem of the fairy tale is: what will a healthy man do with a fantastic world? The problems of the modern novel is: what will a madman do with a dull world? In the fairy tales the cosmos goes mad; but the hero does not go mad. In the modern novels the hero is mad before the book begins, and suffers from the harsh steadiness and cruel sanity of the cosmos.

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Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect and supreme experience if only one had a colored pencil long enough to draw on the ceiling.

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The triangle of truisms, of father, mother and child, cannot be destroyed; it can only destroy those civilizations which disregard it.

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There is not really any courage at all in attacking hoary or antiquated things, any more than in offering to fight one's grandmother. The really courageous man is he who defies tyrannies young as the morning and superstitions fresh as the first flowers. The only true free-thinker is he whose intellect is as much free from the future as from the past.

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Pride juggles with her toppling towers, They strike the sun and cease, But the firm feet of humility They grip the ground like trees.

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Jesus promised his disciples three things—that they would be completely fearless, absurdly happy, and in constant trouble.

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[Capitalism is] that commercial system in which supply immediately answers to demand, and in which everybody seems to be thoroughly dissatisfied and unable to get anything he wants.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Answers Quotes , Demand Quotes

He must not merely cling to life, for then he will be a coward, and will not escape. He must not merely wait for death, for then he will be a suicide, and will not escape. He must seek his life in a spirit of furious indifference to it.

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