Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes

He must not merely cling to life, for then he will be a coward, and will not escape. He must not merely wait for death, for then he will be a suicide, and will not escape. He must seek his life in a spirit of furious indifference to it.

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The dignity of the artist lies in his duty of keeping awake the sense of wonder in the world.

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If we want to give poor people soap we must set out deliberately to give them luxuries. If we will not make them rich enough to be clean, then empathically we must do what we did with the saints. We must reverence them for being dirty.

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When we reverence anything in the mature, it is their virtues or their wisdom, and this is an easy matter. But we reverence the faults and follies of children. We should probably come considerably nearer to the true conception of things if we treated all grown-up persons, of all titles and types, with precisely that dark affection and dazed respect with which we treat the infantile limitations.

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Powerful men who have powerful passions use much of their strength in forging chains for themselves.

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You could compile the worst book in the world entirely out of selected passages from the best writers in the world.

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Faith is always at a disadvantage; it is a perpetually defeated thing which survives all conquerors.

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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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There'd be a lot less scandal if people didn't idealize sin and pose as sinners.

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They said that I should lose my ideals and begin to believe in the methods of practical politicians. Now, I have not lost my ideals in the least; my faith in fundamentals is exactly what it always was. What I have lost is my childlike faith in practical politics.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Believe Quotes , Fundamentals Quotes

There are two kinds of people in the world, the conscious dogmatists and the unconscious dogmatists. I have always found myself that the unconscious dogmatists were by far the most dogmatic.

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A large section of the intelligentsia seems wholly devoid of intelligence.

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Jokes are generally honest. Complete solemnity is always dishonest.

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All architecture is great architecture after sunset; perhaps architecture is really a nocturnal art, like the art of fireworks.

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We all feel the riddle of the earth without anyone to point it out. The mystery of life is the plainest part of it. The clouds and curtains of darkness, the confounding vapors, these are the daily weather of this world.

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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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Christmas is built upon a beautiful and intentional paradox; that the birth of the homeless should be celebrated in every home.

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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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I had always felt life first as a story: and if there is a story there is a story-teller

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Posting a letter and getting married [sic] are among the few things left that are entirely romantic; for to be entirely romantic, a thing must be irrevocable

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