Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes

Drink because you are happy, but never because you are miserable. Never drink when you are wretched without it, or you will be like the grey-faced gin-drinker in the slum; but drink when you would be happy without it, and you will be like the laughing peasant of Italy. Never drink because you need it, for this is rational drinking, and the way to death and hell. But drink because you do not need it, for this is irrational drinking, and the ancient health of the world.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Drinking Quotes , Laughing Quotes

Altruists, with thin, weak voices, denounce Christ as an egoist. Egoists (with even thinner and weaker voices) denounce Him as an altruist.

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Precisely because our political speeches are meant to be reported, they are not worth reporting. Precisely because they are carefully designed to be read, nobody reads them.

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Men rush towards complexity, but they yearn towards simplicity. They try to be kings; but they dream of being shepherds.

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Suppose, my dear Chadd, suppose it is we who are the idiots because we are not afraid of devils in the dark?

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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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Modern intelligence won't accept anything on authority. But it will accept anything without authority.

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The noble temptation to see too much in everything.

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When a politician is in opposition he is an expert on the means to some end; and when he is in office he is an expert on the obstacles to it.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Mean Quotes , Office Quotes

The Christian pities men because they are dying, and the Buddhist pities them because they are living. The Christian is sorry for what damages the life of a man; but the Buddhist is sorry for him because he is alive.

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The true object of all human life is play. Earth is a task garden; heaven is a playground.

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Hope is the power of being cheerful in circumstances which we know to be desperate.

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Nothing is poetical if plain daylight is not poetical; and no monster should amaze us if the normal man does not amaze.

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Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere.

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If Christianity should happen to be true - that is to say, if its God is the real God of the universe - then defending it may mean talking about anything and everything.

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The coziness between church and state is good for the state and bad for the church

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All literary style, especially national style, is made up of such coincidences, which are a spiritual sort of puns. That is why style is untranslatable.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Spiritual Quotes , Style Quotes

People wonder why the novel is the most popular form of literature; people wonder why it is read more than books of science or books of metaphysics. The reason is very simple; it is merely that the novel is more true than they are.

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In the end it will not matter to us whether we wrote well or ill; whether we fought with flails or reeds. It will matter to us greatly on what side we fought.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Matter Quotes , Sides Quotes

The old restriction meant that only the orthodox were allowed to discuss religion. Modern liberty means that nobody is allowed to discuss it. Good taste, the last and vilest of human superstitions, has succeeded in silencing us where all the rest have failed.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Mean Quotes , Liberty Quotes