Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes

The humorous look of children is perhaps the most endearing of all the bonds that hold the Cosmos together. Their top-heavy dignity is more touching than any humility; their solemnity gives us more hope for all things than a thousand carnivals of optimism; their large and lustrous eyes seem to hold all the stars in their astonishment; their fascinating absence of nose seems to give to us the most perfect hint of the humour that awaits us in the kingdom of heaven.

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

To be simple is the best thing in the world; to be modest is the next best thing. I am not sure about being quiet.

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All literary style, especially national style, is made up of such coincidences, which are a spiritual sort of puns. That is why style is untranslatable.

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With every step of our lives we enter into the middle of some story which we are certain to misunderstand.

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A feminist is someone who loathes being a woman and who dislikes the chief feminine characteristics.

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I represent the jolly mass of mankind. I am the happy and reckless Christian.

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Literary men are being employed to praise a big business man personally, as men used to praise a king. They not only find political reasons for the commercial schemes that they have done for some time past they also find moral defences for the commercial schemers... I do resent the whole age of patronage being revived under such absurd patrons; and all poets becoming court poets, under kings that have taken no oath.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Kings Quotes , Taken Quotes

We should always endeavor to wonder at the permanent thing, not at the mere exception. We should be startled by the sun, and not by the eclipse. We should wonder less at the earthquake, and wonder more at the earth.

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The only words that ever satisfied me as describing nature are the terms used in fairy books, charm, spell, enchantment; they express the arbitrariness of the fact and its mystery.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Nature Quotes , Book Quotes

I am concerned with a certain way of looking at life, which was created in me by the fairy tales, but has since been meekly ratified by the mere facts.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Way Quotes , Facts Quotes

It is a strange thing that many truly spiritual men, such as General Gordon, have actually spent some hours in speculating upon the precise location of the Garden of Eden. Most probably we are in Eden still. It is only our eyes that have changed.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Spiritual Quotes , Eye Quotes

The most valuable book we can read, about countries we have visited, is that which recalls to us something that we did notice, but did not notice that we noticed.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Country Quotes , Book Quotes

Compromise used to mean that half a loaf was better than no bread. Among modern statesmen it really seems to mean that half a loaf; is better than a whole loaf.

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Political Economy means that everybody except politicians must be economical.

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You can only find truth with logic if you have already found truth without it.

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The Christian pities men because they are dying, and the Buddhist pities them because they are living. The Christian is sorry for what damages the life of a man; but the Buddhist is sorry for him because he is alive.

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When you have really exhausted an experience you always reverence and love it.

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In truth, there are only two kinds of people; those who accept dogma and know it, and those who accept dogma and don't know it.

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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 vulgar man is always the most distinguished, for the very desire to be distinguished is vulgar.

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