Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes

The modern materialists are not permitted to doubt; they are forbidden to believe.

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[Buddhism and Christianity] are in one sense parallel and equal; as a mound and a hollow, as a valley and a hill. There is a sense in which that sublime despair is the only alternative to that divine audacity. It is even true that the truly spiritual and intellectual man sees it as sort of dilemma; a very hard and terrible choice. There is little else on earth that can compare with these for completeness. And he who does not climb the mountain of Christ does indeed fall into the abyss of Buddha.

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And Noah he often said to his wife when he sat down to dine, "I don't care where the water goes if it doesn't get into the wine."

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Modern man is educated to understand foreign languages and misunderstand foreigners.

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

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"Are you a devil?" "I am a man," answered Father Brown gravely; "and therefore have all devils in my heart."

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There are two kinds of peacemakers in the modern world; and they are both, though in various ways, a nuisance. The first peacemaker is the man who goes about saying that he agrees with everybody. He confuses everybody. The second peacemaker is the man who goes about saying that everybody agrees with him. He enrages everybody. Between the two of them they produce a hundred times more disputes and distractions than we poor pugnacious people would ever have thought of in our lives.

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Christianity satisfies suddenly and perfectly man's ancestral instinct for being the right way up; satisfies it supremely in this, that by its creed Joy becomes something gigantic, and Sadness something special and small.

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The artistic temperament is a disease that affects amateurs. Artists of a large and wholesome vitality get rid of their art easily, as they breathe easily or perspire easily. But in artists of less force, the thing becomes a pressure, and produces a definite pain, which is called the artistic temperament.

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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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Truths turn into dogmas the instant that they are disputed. Thus every man who utters a doubt defines a religion.

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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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Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to that arrogant oligarchy who merely happen to be walking around.

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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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If an editor can only make people angry enough, they will write half his newspaper for him for nothing.

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Every time a man knocks on a brothel door, he is really knocking for God

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As regards moral courage, then, it is not so much that the public schools support it feebly, as that they suppress it firmly.

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Most Americans ... have a sort of permanent intoxication from within, a sort of invisible champagne.

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Is there anyone... who will maintain that the Party System could have been created by people particularly fond of truth?

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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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