Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes - Page 28

• If a rhinoceros were to enter this restaurant now, there is no denying he would have great power here. But I should be the first to rise and assure him that he had no authority whatever.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Leadership, Firsts, Authority

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• There is no such thing as Success....That a thing is successful merely means that it is; a millionaire is successful in being a millionaire and a donkey in being a donkey.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Mean, Successful, Wealth

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• This is the age in which thin and theoretic minorities can cover and conquer unconscious and untheoretic majorities.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Progress, Age, Minorities

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• [Marxism will] in a generation or so [go] into the limbo of most heresies, but meanwhile it will have poisoned the Russian Revolution.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  War, Revolution, Generations

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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.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  America, Voting, Democracy

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• It is the mark of our whole modern history that the masses are kept quiet with a fight. They are kept quiet by the fight because it is a sham-fight; thus most of us know by this time that the Party System has been popular only in the sense that a football match is popular.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Football, Party, Fighting

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• By experts in poverty I do not mean sociologists, but poor men.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Mean, Men, Poverty

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• The home is not the one tame place in the world of adventure. It is the one wild place in the world of rules and set tasks.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Inspirational, Home, Adventure

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.272, Simon and Schuster

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• "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.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Science, Long, History

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• Science only means knowledge; and for [Greek] ancients it did only mean knowledge. Thus the favorite science of the Greeks was Astronomy, because it was as abstract as Algebra. ... We may say that the great Greek ideal was to have no use for useful things. The Slave was he who learned useful things; the Freeman was he who learned useless things. This still remains the ideal of many noble men of science, in the sense they do desire truth as the great Greeks desired it; and their attitude is an external protest against vulgarity of utilitarianism.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Attitude, Learning, Mean

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• To mix science up with philosophy is only to produce a philosophy that has lost all its ideal value and a science that has lost all its practical value. It is for my private physician to tell me whether this or that food will kill me. It is for my private philosopher to tell me whether I ought to be killed.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Death, Philosophy, Science

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• Modern masters of science are much impressed with the need of beginning all inquiry with a fact. The ancient masters of religion were quite equally impressed with that necessity. They began with the fact of sin-a fact as practical as potatoes. Whether or not man could be washed in miraculous waters, there was no doubt at any rate that he wanted washing.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Science, Men, Water

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.8, Simon and Schuster

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• Americans are a very backward people, with all the real virtues of a backward people; the patriarchal simplicity and human dignity of a democracy, and a respect for labor uncorrupted by cynicism.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Respect, Real, People

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• In truth the Church is too unique to prove herself unique. For most popular and easy proof is by parallel; and here there is no parallel.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Unique, Church, Easy

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• As to the doubt of the soul I discover it to be false: a mood not a conclusion. My conclusion is the Faith. Corporate, organized, a personality, teaching. A thing, not a theory. It.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Teaching, Personality, Soul

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• Posting a letter and getting married [sic] are among the few things left that are entirely romantic; for to be entirely romantic, a thing must be irrevocable

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Romance, Letters, Married

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• America has a genius for the encouragement of fame.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Encouragement, America, Genius

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• There are two kinds of rebellion. The first is one in which the slave demands something that the tyrant has got. The second is one in which he demands something that the tyrant has not got.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Tyrants, Two, Demand

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• Science boasts of the distance of its stars; of the terrific remoteness of the things of which it has to speak. But poetry and religion always insist upon the proximity, the almost menacing closeness of the things with which they are concerned. Always the Kingdom of Heaven is "At Hand."

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Stars, Distance, Science

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• At the bottom of all the tributes paid to democracy is the little man, walking into the little booth, with a little pencil, making a little cross on a little bit of paper. . . .

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Men, Democracy, Paper

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• Destiny is but a phrase of the weak human heart - the dark apology for every error. The strong and virtuous admit no destiny. On earth conscience guides; in heaven God watches. And destiny is but the phantom we invoke to silence the one and dethrone the other.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Strong, Heart, Apology

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• When "everyone knows" that something is so, it is always more interesting and often illuminating to assumeexactly the opposite, and to see where that leads.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Opposites, Interesting, Knows

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• It is still bad taste to be an avowed atheist. But now it is equally bad taste to be an avowed Christian.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Christian, Atheist, Taste

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.127, Simon and Schuster

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• There is no bigot like the atheist.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Atheist, Bigots

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• There are arguments for atheism, and they do not depend, and never did depend, upon science. They are arguable enough, as far as they go, upon a general survey of life; only it happens to be a superficial survey of life.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Atheist, Atheism, Argument

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