Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes

The disadvantage of men not knowing the past is that they do not know the present. History is a hill or high point of vantage, from which alone men see the town in which they live or the age in which they are living.

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

The new school of art and thought does indeed wear an air of audacity, and breaks out everywhere into blasphemies, as if it required any courage to say a blasphemy. There is only one thing that it requires real courage to say, and that is a truism.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Courage Quotes , Art Quotes

It is not greedy to enjoy a good dinner, any more than it is to enjoy a good concert. But I do think there is something greedy about trying to enjoy the dinner and the concert at the same time.

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Leisure is being allowed to do nothing.

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The original quality in any man of imagination is imagery.

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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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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Lasts Quotes , Found Quotes

To the humble man, and to the humble man alone, the sun is really a sun; to the humble man, and to the humble man alone, the sea is really a sea.

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There is nothing the matter with Americans except their ideals. The real American is all right; it is the ideal American who is all wrong.

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The trouble with Christianity is, not that its failed, but that it's never been tried . . . not that it can't remake the world, but that it's difficult.

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The rolling stone rolls echoing from rock to rock; but the rolling stone is dead. The moss is silent because the moss is alive.

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I am myself so exceedingly Nordic, as far as physical constitution is concerned, that I can enjoy almost any weather except what is called glorious weather. At the end of a few days, I am left wondering how the men of the Mediterranean ever managed to do almost all the most active and astonishing things that have been done.

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When you have really exhausted an experience you always reverence and love it. The two things that nearly all of us have thoroughly and really been through are childhood and youth. And though we would not have them back again on any account, we feel that they are both beautiful, because we have drunk them dry.

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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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Men invent new ideals because they dare not attempt old ideals. They look forward with enthusiasm, because they are afraid to look back.

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The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children's games from the beginning, and will probably do it till the end, which is a nuisance for the few people who grow up.

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

What are we going to do?" asked the Professor. "At this moment," said Syme, with a scientific detachment, "I think we are going to smash into a lamppost.

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Free verse'? You may as well call sleeping in a ditch 'free architecture'.

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It is not only possible to say a great deal in praise of play; it is really possible to say the highest things in praise of it. It might reasonably be maintained that the true object of all human life is play. Earth is a task garden; heaven is a playground.

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When belief in God becomes difficult, the tendency is to turn away from Him; but in heaven's name to what?

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Names Quotes , Heaven Quotes

...but this is the real objection to that torrent of modern talk about treating crime as disease, about making prison merely a hygienic environment like a hospital, of healing sin by slow scientific methods. The fallacy of the whole thing is that evil is a matter of active choice whereas disease is not.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Real Quotes , Healing Quotes