Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes

One of the deepest and strangest of all human moods is the mood which will suddenly strike us perhaps in a garden at night, or deep in sloping meadows, the feeling that every flower and leaf has just uttered something stupendously direct and important, and that we have by a prodigy of imbecility not heard or understood it. There is a certain poetic value, and that a genuine one, in this sense of having missed the full meaning of things. There is beauty, not only in wisdom, but in this dazed and dramatic ignorance.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Flower Quotes , Ignorance Quotes

The most unfathomable schools and sages have never attained to the gravity which dwells in the eyes of a baby of three months old. It is the gravity of astonishment at the universe, and astonishment at the universe is not mysticism, but a transcendent common-sense. The fascination of children lies in this: that with each of them all things are remade, and the universe is put again upon its trial.

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The true savage is a slave, and is always talking about what he must do; the true civilised man is a free man, and is always talking about what he may do.

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

Every great literature has always been allegorical - allegorical of some view of the whole universe. The 'Iliad' is only great because all life is a battle, the 'Odyssey' because all life is a journey, the Book of Job because all life is a riddle.

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The highest and noblest thing that history can be is a good story.

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The Christian is quite free to believe that there is a considerable amount of settled order and inevitable development in the universe. But the materialist is not allowed to admit into his spotless machine the slightest speck of spiritualism or miracle.

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if a man would make his world large, he must be always making himself small.

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Architecture approaches nearer than any other art to being irrevocable because it is so difficult to get rid of.

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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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[Paradox is] truth standing on its head to gain attention.

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The central idea of poetry is the idea of guessing right, like a child.

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A tragedy means always a mans struggle with that which is stronger than man.

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It is really not so repulsive to see the poor asking for money as to see the rich asking for more money. And advertisement is the rich asking for more money.

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The English are no nearer than they were a hundred years ago to knowing what Jefferson really meant when he said that God had created all men equal.

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The free man owns himself. He can damage himself with either eating or drinking; he can ruin himself with gambling. If he does he is certainly a damn fool, and he might possibly be a damned soul; but if he may not, he is not a free man any more than a dog.

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Dipsomaniac and the abstainer are not only both mistaken, but they both make the same mistake. They both regard wine as a drug and not as a drink.

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The only people who seem to have nothing to do with the education of the children are the parents.

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We do not want joy and anger to neutralize each other and produce a surly contentment; we want a fiercer delight and a fiercer discontent. We have to feel the universe at once as an ogre's castle, to be stormed, and yet as our own cottage, to which we can return to at evening.

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A sober man may become a drunkard through being a coward. A brave man may become a coward through being a drunkard.

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The only object of liberty is life.

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