Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes

I left the fairy tales lying on the floor of the nursery, and I have not found any books so sensible since.

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

I think the oddest thing about the advanced people is that, while they are always talking about things as problems, they have hardly any notion of what a real problem is.

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Let a man walk ten miles steadily on a hot summer's day along a dusty English road, and he will soon discover why beer was invented.

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There is, therefore, about all complete conviction a kind of huge helplessness.

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If, therefore, nonsense is really to be the literature of the future, it must have its own version of the Cosmos to offer; the world must not only be tragic, romantic, and religious, it must be nonsensical also.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Religious Quotes , Cosmos Quotes

The one perfectly divine thing, the one glimpse of God's paradise given on earth, is to fight a losing battle - and not lose it.

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If you attempt an actual argument with a modern paper of opposite politics, you will have no answer except slanging or silence.

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We do not need to get good laws to restrain bad people. We need to get good people to restrain us from bad laws.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Law Quotes , People Quotes

Any man who preaches real love is bound to beget hate. It is as true of democratic fraternity as a divine love; sham love ends in compromise and common philosophy; but real love has always ended in bloodshed.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Hate Quotes , Philosophy Quotes

Government has become ungovernable; that is, it cannot leave off governing. Law has become lawless; that is, it cannot see where laws should stop. The chief feature of our time is the meekness of the mob and the madness of the government.

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The martyr endured tortures to affirm his belief in truth but he never asserted his disbelief in torture.

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(Tradition) is the democracy of the dead.

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The modern world... has no notion except that of simplifying something by destroying nearly everything.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Simplicity Quotes , World Quotes

Americans have a taste for…rocking-chairs. A flippant critic might suggest that they select rocking-chairs so that, even when they are sitting down, they need not be sitting still. Something of this restlessness in the race may really be involved in the matter; but I think the deeper significance of the rocking-chair may still be found in the deeper symbolism of the rocking-horse. I think there is behind all this fresh and facile use of wood a certain spirit that is childish in the good sense of the word; something that is innocent, and easily pleased.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Horse Quotes , Thinking Quotes

Earnest Freethinkers need not worry themselves so much about the persecutions of the past. Before the Liberal idea is dead or triumphant we shall see wars and persecutions the like of which the world has never seen.

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

Leaving the complications of the human breakfast-table out of account, in an elemental sense, the egg only exists to produce the chicken. But the chicken does not exist only in order to produce another egg. He may also exist to amuse himself, to praise God, and even to suggest ideas to a French dramatist. Being a conscious life, he is, or may be, valuable in himself.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Animal Quotes , Order Quotes

We have passed the age of the demagogue, the man who has little to say and says it loud. We have come to the age of the mystagogue or don, the man who has nothing to say, but says it softly and impressively in an indistinct whisper.

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Contemporary society has become dry, not for lack of wonders but for lack of wonder.

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By a curious confusion, many modern critics have passed from the proposition that a masterpiece may be unpopular to the other proposition that unless it is unpopular it cannot be a masterpiece.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Confusion Quotes , May Quotes

And though St. John saw many strange monsters in his vision, he saw no creature so wild as one of his own commentators.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Vision Quotes , Monsters Quotes