Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes

The good Bishop of Assisi expressed a sort of horror at the hard life which the Little Brothers lived at the Portiuncula, without comforts, without possessions, eating anything they could get and sleeping anyhow on the ground. St. Francis answered him with that curious and almost stunning shrewdness which the unworldly can sometimes wield like a club of stone. He said, 'If we had any possessions, we should need weapons and laws to defend them.

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A nation that has nothing but its amusements will not be amused for long.

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A puritan is a person who pours righteous indignation into the wrong things.

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The man who lives in a small community lives in a much larger world... The reason is obvious. In a large community we can choose our companions. In a small community our companions are chosen for us.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Men Quotes , Community Quotes

A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been reversed. Nowadays the part of a man that a man does assert is exactly the part he ought not to assert - himself. The part he doubts is exactly the part he ought not to doubt - the Divine Reason.

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Every high civilization decays by forgetting obvious things.

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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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The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one's own country as a foreign land.

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If a man only likes victory he must always come late for the battle.

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A change of opinions is almost unknown in an elderly military man.

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Eugenics asserts that all men must be so stupid that they cannot manage their own affairs; and also so clever that they can manage each other's.

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Research is the search of people who don't know what they want.

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The unconscious democracy of America is a very fine thing. It is a true and deep and instinctive assumption of the equality of citizens, which even voting and elections have not destroyed.

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It is the first law of practical courage. To be in the weakest camp is to be in the strongest school.

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

The truth is that it is our attitude towards children that is right, and our attitude towards grown-up people that is wrong. Our attitude towards our equals in age consists in a servile solemnity, overlying a considerable degree of indifference or disdain. Our attitude towards children consists in a condescending indulgence, overlying an unfathomable respect.

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He wondered why the pelican was the symbol of charity, except it was that it wanted a good deal of charity to admire a pelican.

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Romance is the deepest thing in life. It is deeper than reality.

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These are the things which might conceivably and truly make men forgive their enemies. We can only turn hate to love by understanding what are the things that men have loved; nor is it necessary to ask men to hate their loves in order to love one another. Just as two grocers are most likely to be reconciled when they remember for a moment that they are two fathers, so two nationals are most likely to be reconciled when they remember (if only for a moment) that they are two patriots.

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Each generation is converted by the saint who contradicts it most.

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