Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes - Page 41

• Men can construct a science with very few instruments, or with very plain instruments; but no one on earth could construct a science with unreliable instruments. A man might work out the whole of mathematics with a handful of pebbles, but not with a handful of clay which was always falling apart into new fragments, and falling together into new combinations. A man might measure heaven and earth with a reed, but not with a growing reed.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Fall, Men, Work Out

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.180, Simon and Schuster

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• There is something to be said for every error; but, whatever may be said for it, the most important thing to be said about it is that it is erroneous.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Mistake, Errors, Important

  "The Illustrated London News" Magazine, April 25, 1931.

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• ...it is not necessary to the child to awaken to the sense of the strange and humorous by giving a man a luminous nose...to the child it is sufficiently strange and humorous to have a nose at all.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Children, Humorous, Men

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• We must be clear about what we want to paint. This adds a further principle to our previous list of principles. We have said we must be fond of this world, even in order to change it.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Order, Society, World

  "The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton".

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• You could compile the worst book in the world entirely out of selected passages from the best writers in the world.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Book, Writing, World

  "Dictionary of Quotations in Communications" by Lilless McPherson Shilling, p. xvi, 1997.

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• The idea of private property universal but private, the idea of families free but still families, of domesticity democratic but still domestic, of one man one house - this remains the real vision and magnet of mankind. The world may accept something more official and general, less human and intimate. But the world will be like a broken-hearted woman who makes a humdrum marriage because she may not make a happy one; Socialism may be the world's deliverance, but it is not the world's desire.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Faith, Real, Inspiration

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.280, Simon and Schuster

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• If we could destroy custom at a blow and see the stars as a child sees them, we should need no other apocalypse.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Inspirational, Nature, Stars

  "The Defendant". Book by Gilbert K. Chesterton, 1901.

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• It is much easier to write a good Times leading article than a good joke in Punch.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Writing, Good Times, Easier

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.91, Simon and Schuster

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• Whether a man chooses to tell the truth in long sentences or short jokes is a problem analogous to whether he chooses to tell the truth in French or in German.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Men, Long, Problem

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (1909). “Heretics”

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• Every man is important if he loses his life;and every man is funny if he loses his hat and has to run after it.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Running, Men, Important

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• The full value of this life can only be got by fighting; the violent take it by storm. And if we have accepted everything we have missed something - war. This life of ours is a very enjoyable fight, but a very miserable truce.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  War, Fighting, Storm

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• Half a truth is better than no politics.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Half, Politics, Truth Is

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• People in high life are hardened to the wants and distresses of mankind as surgeons are to their bodily pains.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Pain, People, Want

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• 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.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Philosophy, Moon, Men

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• The modern world is filled with men who hold dogmas so strongly that they do not even know they are dogmas.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Believe, Men, World

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.244, Simon and Schuster

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• Men always talk about the most important things to perfect strangers.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Relationship, Uncles, Men

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• The free man owns himself. He can damage himself with either eating or drinking; he can ruin himself with gambling. If he does he is certainly a damn fool, and he might possibly be a damned soul; but if he may not, he is not a free man any more than a dog.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Dog, Drinking, Men

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• Thoughts on the Merits of Work The worst of work nowadays is what happens to people when they cease to work.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Retirement, People, Merit

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• A building is akin to dogma; it is insolent, like dogma. Whether or no it is permanent, it claims permanence, like a dogma. People ask why we have no typical architecture of the modern world, like impressionism in painting. Surely it is obviously because we have not enough dogmas; we cannot bear to see anything in the sky that is solid and enduring, anything in the sky that does not change like the clouds of the sky.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Clouds, Sky, People

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• Lord! what a strange world in which a man cannot remain unique even by taking the trouble to go mad!

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Unique, Men, Mad

  "The Napoleon of Notting Hill". Book by Gilbert K. Chesterton, 1904.

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• Bigotry is an incapacity to conceive seriously the alternative to a proposition.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Alternatives, Incapacity, Propositions

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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.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Bed, Half, Way

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• There are two kinds of peacemakers in the modern world; and they are both, though in various ways, a nuisance. The first peacemaker is the man who goes about saying that he agrees with everybody. He confuses everybody. The second peacemaker is the man who goes about saying that everybody agrees with him. He enrages everybody. Between the two of them they produce a hundred times more disputes and distractions than we poor pugnacious people would ever have thought of in our lives.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Men, Two, People

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• While once it was the rank and file that cheered with all the partisan passions at their heights, today it is the party leaders who are cheering themselves; and all by themselves. The mob that is their audience is in one vast universal trance, thinking about something else.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Leadership, Cheer, Party

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• He said he didn't very well understand how George was going to sleep any more than he did now, seeing that there were only twenty-four hours in each day.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Funny, Time, Sleep

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