Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes

Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Hope Quotes , Children Quotes

For good or evil, a line has been passed in our political history; and something that we have known all our lives is dead. I will take only one example of it: our politicians can no longer be caricatured.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Humor Quotes , Evil Quotes

Do not be proud of the fact that your grandmother was shocked at something which your are accustomed to seeing or hearing without being shocked. ... It may be that your grandmother was an extremely lively and vital animal and that you are a paralytic.

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Every work of art has one indispensable mark ... the center of it is simple, however much the fulfillment may be complicated.

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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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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

There is a case for telling the truth; there is a case for avoiding the scandal; but there is no possible defense for the man who tells the scandal, but does not tell the truth

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Truth Quotes , Honesty Quotes

Compromise used to mean that half a loaf was better than no bread. Among modern statesmen it really seems to mean that half a loaf; is better than a whole loaf.

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

"The Universe repeats itself, with the possible exception of history." Of all earthly studies history is the only one that does not repeat itself. ... Astronomy repeats itself; botany repeats itself; trigonometry repeats itself; mechanics repeats itself; compound long division repeats itself. Every sum if worked out in the same way at any time will bring out the same answer. ... A great many moderns say that history is a science; if so it occupies a solitary and splendid elevation among the sciences; it is the only science the conclusions of which are always wrong.

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[Capitalism is] that commercial system in which supply immediately answers to demand, and in which everybody seems to be thoroughly dissatisfied and unable to get anything he wants.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Answers Quotes , Demand Quotes

The long words are not the hard words, it is the short words that are hard. There is much more metaphysical subtlety in the word "damn" than in the word "degeneration."

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Long Quotes , Metaphysical Quotes

The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits.

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People that insist upon drinking and driving, are putting the quart before the hearse.

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One can hardly think too little of one's self. One can hardly think too much of one's soul.

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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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Music with dinner is an insult both to the cook and the violinist.

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A turkey is more occult and awful than all the angels and archangels. In so far as God has partly revealed to us an angelic world, he has partly told us what an angel means. But God has never told us what a turkey means. And if you go and stare at a live turkey for an hour or two, you will find by the end of it that the enigma has rather increased than diminished.

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It is cold anarchy to say that all men are to meddle in all men'smarriages. It is cold anarchy to say that any doctor may seize andsegregate anyone he likes. But it is not anarchy to say that a fewgreat hygienists might enclose or limit the life of all citizens,as nurses do with a family of children. It is not anarchy, it istyranny; but tyranny is a workable thing.

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A thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Creativity Quotes , Construction Quotes

Science is the study of the admitted laws of existence, which cannot prove a universal negative about whether those laws could ever be suspended by something admittedly above them. It is as if we were to say that a lawyer was so deeply learned in the American Constitution that he knew there could never be a revolution in America.

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