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Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes - Page 26

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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

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

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

There is no great harm in the theorist who makes up a new theory to fit a new event. But the theorist who starts with a false theory and then sees everything as making it come true is the most dangerous enemy of human reason.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Science, Enemy, Events
"The Flying Inn". Book by Gilbert K. Chesterton, 1914.

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

It is the root of all religion that a man knows that he is nothing in order to thank God that he is something.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Men, Order, Roots

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

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

Man is not merely an evolution but rather a revolution.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Faith, Inspiration, Men

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

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

America has a genius for the encouragement of fame.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Encouragement, America, Genius

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

The modern world is not evil; in some ways the modern world is far too good. It is full of wild and wasted virtues. When a religious scheme is shattered (as Christianity was shattered at the Reformation), it is not merely the vices that are let loose. The vices are, indeed, let loose, and they wander and do damage. But the virtues are let loose also; and the virtues wander more wildly, and the virtues do more terrible damage. The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Christian, Religious, Evil
Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.20, Simon and Schuster

If a man does not talk to himself, it is because he is not worth talking to.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Men, Talking, Doe

Nothing can ever overcome that one enormous sex (female) superiority that even the male child is born closer to his mother than to his father.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Mother, Sex, Children

Progress is the mother of problems.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Mother, Progress, Problem
Gilbert K. Chesterton (2012). “The Collected Works of G.K. Chesterton”, p.65, Ignatius Press

I should favour anything that would increase the present enormous authority of women and their creative action in their own homes. The average woman...is a despot; the average man is a serf.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Women, Home, Average

It is really not so repulsive to see the poor asking for money as to see the rich asking for more money. And advertisement is the rich asking for more money.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Asking, Advertising, Rich

The disadvantage of men not knowing the past is that they do not know the present.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Wisdom, Past, Men

I would never commit the positively anti-social action of robbing a bank, or worse still, working in one.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Action, Social, Robbing

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

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

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

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

You've got that eternal idiotic idea that if anarchy came it would come from the poor. Why should it? The poor have been rebels, but they have never been anarchists; they have more interest than any one else in there being some decent government. The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes been objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all. Aristocrats were always anarchists, as you can see from the barons' wars.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Country, War, Men
Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.236, Simon and Schuster

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