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I am not fighting a hopeless fight. People who have fought in real fights don't, as a rule.
G. K. Chesterton
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People have fallen into a foolish habit of speaking of orthodoxy as something heavy, humdrum, and safe. There never was anything so perilous or so exciting as orthodoxy. It was sanity: and to be sane is more dramatic than to be mad.
G. K. Chesterton
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If we want to give poor people soap we must set out deliberately to give them luxuries. If we will not make them rich enough to be clean, then empathically we must do what we did with the saints. We must reverence them for being dirty.
G. K. Chesterton
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He has come to the most dreadful conclusion a literary man can come to, the conclusion that the ordinary view is the right one. It is only the last and wildest kind of courage that can stand on a tower before ten thousand people and tell them that twice two is four.
G. K. Chesterton
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He did not know the way things were going: he was too Victorian to understand the Victorian epoch. He did not know enough ignorant people to have heard the news.
G. K. Chesterton
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Gluttony is a great fault; but we do not necessarily dislike a glutton. We only dislike the glutton when he becomes a gourmet-that is, we only dislike him when he not only wants the best for himself, but knows what is best for other people.
G. K. Chesterton
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Wit is a sword; it is meant to make people feel the point as well as see it.
G. K. Chesterton
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There'd be a lot less scandal if people didn't idealize sin and pose as sinners.
G. K. Chesterton
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Children are grateful when Santa Claus puts in their stockings gifts of toys or sweets. Could I not be grateful to Santa Claus when he put in my stockings the gift of two miraculous legs? We thank people for birthday presents of cigars and slippers. Can I thank no one for the birthday present of birth?
G. K. Chesterton
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There are a great many good people, and a great many sane people here this afternoon. Unfortunately, by a kind of coincidence, all the good people are mad, and all the sane people are wicked.
G. K. Chesterton
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"I swear to you, then," said MacIan, after a pause. "I swear to you that nothing shall come between us. I swear to you that nothing shall be in my heart or in my head till our swords clash together. I swear it by the God you have denied, by the Blessed Lady you have blasphemed; I swear it by the seven swords in her heart. I swear it by the Holy Island where my fathers are, by the honour of my mother, by the secret of my people, and by the chalice of the Blood of God."
The atheist drew up his head. "And I," he said, "give my word."
G. K. Chesterton
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O God of earth and altar,
Bow down and hear our cry,
Our earthly rulers falter,
Our people drift and die;
The walls of gold entomb us,
The swords of scorn divide,
Take not thy thunder from us,
But take away our pride.
G. K. Chesterton
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There are many definite methods, honest and dishonest, which make people rich; the only instinct I know of which does it is that instinct which theological Christianity crudely describes as the sin of avarice.
G. K. Chesterton
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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.
G. K. Chesterton
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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.
G. K. Chesterton
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It was the people who did not care who filled the world with fire and oppression. It was the hands of the indifferent that lit the faggots; it was the hands of the indifferent that turned the rack.
G. K. Chesterton
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Journalism largely consists in saying 'Lord Jones Dead' to people who never knew that Lord Jones was alive.
G. K. Chesterton
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I wish we could sometimes love the characters in real life as we love the characters in romances. There are a great many human souls whom we should accept more kindly, and even appreciate more clearly, if we simply thought of them as people in a story.
G. K. Chesterton
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The past is democratic, because it is a people. The future is despotic, because it is a caprice. Every man is alone in his prediction, just as each man is alone in a dream.
G. K. Chesterton
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When people begin to ignore human dignity, it will not be long before they begin to ignore human rights.
G. K. Chesterton
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What people call impartiality may simply mean indifference, and what people call partiality may simply mean mental activity.
G. K. Chesterton
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What is the good of telling a community that it has every liberty except the liberty to make laws? The liberty to make laws is what constitutes a free people.
G. K. Chesterton
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Without education, we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously.
G. K. Chesterton
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It is quite easy to see why a legend is treated, and ought to be treated, more respectfully than a book of history. The legend is generally made by the majority of people in the village, who are sane. The book is generally written by the one man in the village who is mad.
G. K. Chesterton
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Research is the search of people who don't know what they want.
G. K. Chesterton
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Quote of the day
Joy is like restless day; but peace divine Like quiet night; Lead me, O Lord, — till perfect Day shall shine Through Peace to Light.
Adelaide Anne Procter
G. K. Chesterton
Creative Commons
Born:
May 29, 1874
Died:
June 14, 1936
(aged 62)
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