Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes

A good civilisation spreads over us freely like a tree, varying and yielding because it is alive. A bad civilisation stands up and sticks out above us like an umbrella-artificial, mathematical in shape; not merely universal, but uniform.

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Research is the search of people who don't know what they want.

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All real democracy is an attempt like that of a jolly hostess to bring the shy people out.

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Christianity, whatever else it is, is an explosion. Unless it is sensational there is simply no sense in it. Unless the Gospel sounds like a gun going off it has not been uttered at all.

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...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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The whole truth is generally the ally of virtue; a half-truth is always the ally of some vice.

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Our digestions, going sacredly and silently right, that is the foundation of all poetry.

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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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A nation that has nothing but its amusements will not be amused for long.

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Marriage is an adventure, like going to war.

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There should be a burnished tablet let into the ground on the spot where some courageous man first ate Stilton cheese, and survived.

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The sane man knows that he has a touch of the beast, a touch of the devil, a touch of the saint, a touch of the citizen. Nay, the really sane man knows that he has a touch of the madman.

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Honour is a luxury for aristocrats, but it is a necessity for hall-porters.

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Hell is God's great compliment to the reality of human freedom and the dignity of human choice.

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It is always the secure who are humble.

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Facts as facts do not always create a spirit of reality, because reality is a spirit.

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All true friendliness begins with fire and food and drink and the recognition of rain or frost.

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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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There are many books which we think we have read when we have not. There are, at least, many that we think we remember when we do not. An original picture was, perhaps, imprinted upon the brain, but it has changed with our own changing minds. We only remember our remembrance.

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I believe in preaching to the converted; for I have generally found that the converted do not understand their own religion.

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