Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes

The modern habit of saying "This is my opinion, but I may be wrong" is entirely irrational. If I say that it may be wrong, I say that is not my opinion. The modern habit of saying "Every man has a different philosophy; this is my philosophy and it suits me" – the habit of saying this is mere weak-mindedness. A cosmic philosophy is not constructed to fit a man; a cosmic philosophy is constructed to fit a cosmos. A man can no more possess a private religion than he can possess a private sun and moon.

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Puritanism was an honourable mood; it was a noble fad. In other words, it was a highly creditable mistake.

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You'll never find the solution if you don't see the problem.

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All men thirst to confess their crimes more than tired beasts thirst for water; but they naturally object to confessing them while other people, who have also committed the same crimes, sit by and laugh at them.

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No man can break any of the Ten Commandments. He can only break himself against them.

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There is more to life than increasing its speed. Gandhi gave my life to become the person I am right now. Was it worth it? Richard Bach Life exists for the love of music or beautiful things.

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A nation is not going mad when it does extravagant things, so long as it does them in an extravagant spirit. But whenever we see things done wildly, but taken tamely, then the State is growing insane.

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If you do not understand a man you cannot crush him. And if you do understand him, very probably you will not.

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How much happier you would be, how much more of you there would be, if the hammer of a higher God could smash your small cosmos.

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Even a bad shot is dignified when he accepts a duel.

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There is no great harm in the theorist who makes up a new theory to fit a new event. But the theorist who starts with a false theory and then sees everything as making it come true is the most dangerous enemy of human reason.

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The prophet and the quack are alike admired for a generation, and admired for the wrong reasons.

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I am not fighting a hopeless fight. People who have fought in real fights don't, as a rule.

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She had never really listened to anyone in her life; which, some said, was why she had survived.

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Human anger is a higher thing than what is called divine discontent. For you must be angry with something; but you can be discontented with everything.

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Unless a man starts afresh about things, he will certainly do nothing effective. Unless a man starts on the strange assumption that he has never existed before, it is quite certain that he will never exist afterwards.

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Anyone who is not an anarchist agrees with having a policeman at the corner of the street; but the danger at present is that of finding the policeman half-way down the chimney or even under the bed.

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The disadvantage of men not knowing the past is that they do not know the present.

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The vault above us is not deaf because the universe is an idiot; the silence is not the heartless silence of an endless and aimless world. Rather the silence around us is a small and pitiful stillness like the prompt stillness of a sick room. We are perhaps permitted tragedy as a sort of merciful comedy, because the frantic energy of divine things would knock us down like a drunken farce. We can take our own tears more lightly than we could take the tremendous levities of the angels. So we sit perhaps in a starry chamber of silence while the laughter of the heavens is too loud for us to hear.

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The vulgar man is always the most distinguished, for the very desire to be distinguished is vulgar.

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