Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes - Page 44

• The coziness between church and state is good for the state and bad for the church

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Church, States, Church And State

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• The man who says, 'my country right or wrong' is like the man who says, 'my mother drunk or sober'

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Mother, Country, Men

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• Sometimes he even embarrassed the company by phrases suggesting that there was some difference between a Liberal and a Conservative.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Differences, Phrases, Conservative

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• But we are the people of England; and we have not spoken yet. Smile at us, pay us, pass us. But do not quite forget.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  People, Pay, England

  Gilbert Keith Chesterton, “The Secret People”

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• Every work of art has one indispensable mark ... the center of it is simple, however much the fulfillment may be complicated.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Art, Simple, May

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• The first fact about the celebration of a birthday is that it is a way of affirming defiantly, and even flamboyantly, that it is a good thing to be alive.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Alive, Way, Firsts

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• Grey is a colour that always seems on the eve of changing to some other colour.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Color, Grey, Colour

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• Boys like romantic tales; but babies like realistic tales-because they find them romantic.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Baby, Children, Boys

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.38, Simon and Schuster

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• The cross cannot be defeated for it is defeat.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Defeat, Defeated, Crosses

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• The true savage is a slave, and is always talking about what he must do; the true civilised man is a free man, and is always talking about what he may do.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Men, Talking, Civilization

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• For religion all men are equal, as all pennies are equal, because the only value of any of them is that they bear the image of the king.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Kings, Equality, Men

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• When once you have got hold of a vulgar joke, you may be certain that you have got hold of a subtle and spiritual idea.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Spiritual, Humor, Ideas

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• Hope means expectancy when things are otherwise hopeless.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Hope, Mean, Expectancy

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• It is because artists do not practise, patrons do not patronize, crowds do not assemble to reverently worship the great work of Doing Nothing, that the world has lost its philosophy and even failed to invent a new religion.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Philosophy, Artist, World

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• The strangest whim has seized me ... After all I think I will not hang myself today.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Suicide, Thinking, Today

  1915 'Ballade of Suicide'.

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• Some of the most frantic lies on the face of life are told with modesty and restraint; for the simple reason that only modesty and restraint will save them.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Lying, Simple, Faces

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• (Tradition) is the democracy of the dead.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Democracy, Tradition

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• Earth will grow worse till men redeem it, And wars more evil, ere all wars cease.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  War, Men, Evil

  Gilbert Keith Chesterton, “A Song Of Defeat”

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• There is also an insulting speech about 'one grey day just like another'. You might as well talk about one green tree like another.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Weather, Tree, Insulting

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• There is no such thing on earth as an uninteresting subject; the only thing that can exist is an uninterested person. Nothing is more keenly required than a defence of bores. When Byron divided humanity into the bores and bored, he omitted to notice that the higher qualities exist entirely in the bores, the lower qualities in the bored, among whom he counted himself. The bore, by his starry enthusiasm, his solemn happiness, may, in some sense, have proved himself poetical. The bored has certainly proved himself prosaic.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Boredom, Humanity, Quality

  1905 Heretics, ch.3.

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• The old idea that the joke was not good enough for the company has been superseded by the new aristocratic idea that the company was not worthy of the joke. They have introduced an almost insane individualism into that one form of intercourse which is specially and uproariously communal. They have made even levities into secrets. They have made laughter lonelier than tears.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Laughter, Humor, Ideas

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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.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Men, Strange, Assumption

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• The hands that had made the sun and stars were too small to reach the huge heads of the cattle. Upon this paradox, we might almost say upon this jest, all the literature of our faith is founded.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Stars, Hands, Literature

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• The mind that finds its way to wild places is the poet's; but the mind that never finds its way back is the lunatic's.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Wild Places, Mind, Way

  "What's Wrong with the World". Book by G. K. Chesterton, Part Three: Feminism, or The Mistake About Woman, Ch. 3: The Emancipation of Domesticity, 1910.

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• The outer ring of Christianity is a rigid guard of ethical abnegations and professional priests; but inside that inhuman guard you will find the old human life dancing like children and drinking wine like men; for Christianity is the only frame for pagan freedom. But in the modern philosophy the case is opposite; it is its outer ring that is obviously artistic and emancipated; its despair is within.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Children, Philosophy, Drinking

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.119, Simon and Schuster

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