Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes

Vigorous organisms talk not about their processes, but about their aims.

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We all know that the 'divine glory of the ego' is socially a great nuisance; we all do actually value our friends for modesty, freshness, and simplicity of heart. Whatever may be the reason, we all do warmly respect humility - in other people.

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children are simply human beings who are allowed to do what everyone else really desires to do, as for instance, to fly kites, or when seriously wronged to emit prolonged screams for several minutes.

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I say that a man must be certain of his morality for the simple reason that he has to suffer for it.

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Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.

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We do not admire, we hardly excuse, the fanatic who wrecks this world for love of the other. But what are we to say of the fanatic who wrecks this world out of hatred of the other? He sacrifices the very existence of humanity to the non-existence of God. He offers his victims not to the altar, but merely to assert the idleness of the altar and the emptiness of the throne. He is ready to ruin even that primary ethic by which all things live, for his strange and eternal vengeance upon some one who never lived at all.

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Tags : Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes , Sacrifice Quotes , Hatred Quotes

I like the Cyclostyle ink; it is so inky. I do not think there is anyone who takes quite such a fierce pleasure in things being themselves as I do. The startling wetness of water excites and intoxicates me: the fieriness of fire, the steeliness of steel, the unutterable muddiness of mud. It is just the same with people.... When we call a man "manly" or a woman "womanly" we touch the deepest philosophy.

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It was not the house that grew dull, but I that grew dull in it. My wife was better than all women, and yet I could not feel it.

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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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A citizen can hardly distinguish between a tax and a fine, except that the fine is generally much lighter.

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...a figure of speech can often get into a crack too small for a definition.

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To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it.

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I am a bad reporter because everything seems to me worth reporting; and a bad reviewer because every sentence in every book suggests a separate essay.

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We are like the penny, because we have the image of the king stamped on us, the divine king.

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Leisure is being allowed to do nothing.

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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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I said to him, "Shall I tell you where the men are who believe most in themselves? For I can tell you. I know of men who believe in themselves more colossally than Napoleon or Caesar. I know where flames the fixed star of certainty and success. I can guide you to the thrones of the Super-men. The men who really believe in themselves are all in lunatic asylums.

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I will not call it my philosophy; for I did not make it. God and humanity made it; and it made me.

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If there is one fact we really can prove, from the history that we really do know, it is that despotism can be a development, often a late development and very often indeed the end of societies that have been highly democratic. A despotism may almost be defined as a tired democracy. As fatigue falls on a community, the citizens are less inclined for that eternal vigilance which has truly been called the price of liberty; and they prefer to arm only one single sentinel to watch the city while they sleep.

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Think of all those ages through which men have had the courage to die, and then remember that we have actually fallen to talking about having the courage to live.

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