Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes

A man cannot deserve adventures; he cannot earn dragons and hippogriffs.

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Nobody understands the nature of the Church, or the ringing note of the creed descending from antiquity, who does not realize that the whole world once very nearly died of broadmindedness and the brotherhood of all religions.

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Who would condescend to strike down the mere things that he does not fear? Who would debase himself to be merely brave, like any common prizefighter? Who would stoop to be fearless--like a tree? Fight the thing that you fear. You remember the old tale of the English clergyman who gave the last rites to the brigand of Sicily, and how on his death-bed the great robber said, 'I can give you no money, but I can give you advice for a lifetime: your thumb on the blade, and strike upwards.' So I say to you, strike upwards, if you strike at the stars.

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Gratitude produced the most purely joyful moments that have been known to man.

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Christianity got over the difficulty of combining furious opposites, by keeping them both, and keeping them both furious.

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Exactly what the fairy tale does is this: it accustoms him for a series of clear pictures to the idea that these limitless terrors had a limit, that these shapeless enemies have enemies in the knights of God, that there is something in the universe more mystical than darkness, and stronger than strong fear.

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That young man with the long, auburn hair and the impudent face - that young man was not really a poet; but surely he was a poem.

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A yawn is a silent shout.

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Just at present you only see the tree by the light of the lamp. I wonder when you would ever see the lamp by the light of the tree.

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It is better to speak wisdom foolishly like the saints than to speak folly wisely like the deans.

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When a woman puts up her fists to a man she is putting herself in the only posture in which he is not afraid of her.

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There is the great lesson of 'Beauty and the Beast,' that a thing must be loved before it is lovable.

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In the struggle for existence, it is only on those who hang on for ten minutes after all is hopeless, that hope begins to dawn.

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Boys like romantic [fairy] tales; but babies like realistic tales - because they find them romantic...This proves that even nursery tales only echo an almost prenatal leap of interest and amazement. These tales say that apples were golden only to refresh the forgotten moment when we found that they were green. They make rivers run with wine only to make us remember, for one wild moment, that they run with water.

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If a rhinoceros were to enter this restaurant now, there is no denying he would have great power here. But I should be the first to rise and assure him that he had no authority whatever.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Leadership Quotes , Firsts Quotes

We are talking about an artist; and for the enjoyment of the artist the mask must be to some extent moulded on the face. What he makes outside him must correspond to something inside him; he can only make his effects out of some of the materials of his soul.

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Now there is any amount of this nonsense cropping up among American cranks. Anybody may propose to establish coercive Eugenics; or enforce psychoanalysis that is, enforce confession without absolution.

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It was not the house that grew dull, but I that grew dull in it. My wife was better than all women, and yet I could not feel it.

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The poor complain that they are governed badly. The rich complain that they are governed at all.

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Faith means believing the unbelievable.

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