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Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes - Page 14

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To be wrong, and to be carefully wrong, that is the definition of decadence.

To be wrong, and to be carefully wrong, that is the definition of decadence.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Definitions, Decadence

If man is not the image of God, then he is a disease of the dust.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Men, Dust, Disease

All true friendliness begins with fire and food and drink and the recognition of rain or frost.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
True Friend, Rain, Fire
Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.284, Simon and Schuster

The past is not what it was.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Past, Progress, Cult

When it wishes anything done which is really serious, it collects twelve of the ordinary men standing round. The same thing was done, if I remember right, by the Founder of Christianity.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Men, Law, Wish
Tremendous Trifles "The Twelve Men" (1909)

Individually, men may present a more or less rational appearance, eating, sleeping, and scheming. But humanity a a whole is changeful, mystical, fickle, delightful. Men are men, but Man is a woman.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Sleep, Men, Humanity

A teacher who is not dogmatic is simply a teacher who is not teaching.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Teacher, Retirement, Teaching

Jokes are generally honest. Complete solemnity is always dishonest.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Honesty, Honest, Solemnity

Marriage is an adventure, like going to war.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Cute, Marriage, Funny Love

The function of the imagination is not to make strange things settled, so much as to make settled things strange.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Imagination, Strange, Function

Modern man is educated to understand foreign languages and misunderstand foreigners.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Men, Language, Modern

My brother, Cecil Edward Chesterton, was born when I was about five years old; and, after a brief pause, began to argue. He continued to argue to the end. I am glad to think that through all those years we never stopped arguing; and we never once quarreled. Perhaps the principal objection to a quarrel is that it interrupts an argument.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Brother, Thinking, Years

The criminal is the creative artist; the detective only the critic.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Artist, Creative, Criticism
The Innocence of Father Brown "The Blue Cross" (1911)

The sincere love of books has nothing to do with cleverness or stupidity any more than any other sincere love. It is a quality of character, a freshness, a power of pleasure, a power of faith. A silly person may delight in reading masterpieces just as a silly person may delight in picking flowers. A fool may be in love with a poet as he may be in love with a woman.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Flower, Silly, Book

The first two facts which a healthy boy or girl feels about sex are these: first that it is beautiful and then that it is dangerous.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Love, Beautiful, Girl

Now it has appeared to me unfair that humanity should be engaged perpetually in calling all those things bad which have been good enough to make other things better, in everlastingly kicking down the ladder by which it has climbed. It has appeared to me that progress should be something else besides a continual parricide; therefore I have investigated the dust-heaps of humanity, and found a treasure in all of them. I have found that humanity is not incidentally engaged, but eternally and systematically engaged, in throwing gold into the gutter and diamonds into the sea.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Dust, Sea, Humanity
"The Defendant". Book by G. K. Chesterton, 1901.

The position we have now reached is this: starting from the State, we try to remedy the failures of all the families, all the nurseries, all the schools, all the workshops, all the secondary institutions that once had some authority of their own. Everything is ultimately brought into the Law Courts. We are trying to stop the leak at the other end.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
School, Law, Trying

Fairy tales do not give the child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Baby, Children, Dragons
"Tremendous Trifles". Book by Gilbert K. Chesterton, 1909.

All architecture is great architecture after sunset; perhaps architecture is really a nocturnal art, like the art of fireworks.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Art, Sunset, Bad Ass

The telescope makes the world smaller; it is only the microscope that makes it larger.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
World, Telescopes, Microscopes
Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.142, Simon and Schuster

The fatal metaphor of progress, which means leaving things behind us, has utterly obscured the real idea of growth, which means leaving things inside us.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Inspirational, Real, Mean

I represent the jolly mass of mankind. I am the happy and reckless Christian.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Christian, Reckless, Mass

The lunatic is the man who lives in a small world but thinks it is a large one; he is the man who lives in a tenth of the truth, and thinks it is the whole. The madman cannot conceive any cosmos outside a certain tale or conspiracy or vision.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Men, Thinking, Vision

Hope means hoping when things are hopeless, or it is no virtue at all... As long as matters are really hopeful, hope is mere flattery or platitude; it is only when everything is hopeless that hope begins to be a strength.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Hope, Mean, Long

Blasphemy is an artistic effect, because blasphemy depends upon a philosophical conviction. Blasphemy depends upon belief and is fading with it. If any one doubts this, let him sit down seriously and try to think blasphemous thoughts about Thor.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Philosophical, Thinking, Doubt
Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.129, Simon and Schuster

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