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Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes - Page 45

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That all war is physically frightful is obvious; but if that were a moral verdict, there would be no difference between a torturer and a surgeon. There are certain intellectuals who are too bright to be content with

That all war is physically frightful is obvious; but if that were a moral verdict, there would be no difference between a torturer and a surgeon. There are certain intellectuals who are too bright to be content with merely praising peace but who are infuriated by anybody praising war. If no war is possible, all criminality has its chance

Gilbert K. Chesterton
War, Differences, Would Be

And it is always the humble man who talks too much; the proud man watches himself too closely.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Humble, Men, Watches
Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.148, Simon and Schuster

Every politician is emphatically a promising politician.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Politician

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.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Fire, Hands, People
Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.241, Simon and Schuster

Research is the search of people who don't know what they want.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
People, Research, Want

The humorous look of children is perhaps the most endearing of all the bonds that hold the Cosmos together.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Children, Humorous, Together
"The Defendant". Book by G. K. Chesterton, 1901.

The perils, rewards, punishments, and fulfillments of an adventure must be real, or the adventure is only a shifting and heartless nightmare. If I bet I must be made to pay, or there is no poetry in betting. If I challenge I must be made to fight, or there is no poetry in challenging. If I vow to be faithful I must be cursed when I am unfaithful, or there is no fun vowing.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Fun, Real, Adventure

The truth is that it is our attitude towards children that is right, and our attitude towards grown-up people that is wrong.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Children, Attitude, People
"The Defendant". Book by G. K. Chesterton, 1901.

If you spell a word wrong you have some temptation to think it wrong.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Thinking, Temptation, Spells

Boys like romantic [fairy] tales; but babies like realistic tales - because they find them romantic...This proves that even nursery tales only echo an almost prenatal leap of interest and amazement. These tales say that apples were golden only to refresh the forgotten moment when we found that they were green. They make rivers run with wine only to make us remember, for one wild moment, that they run with water.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Running, Baby, Wine

There is, therefore, about all complete conviction a kind of huge helplessness.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Kind, Conviction, Huge
Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.62, Simon and Schuster

Sticking to one woman is a small price to pay for so much as having seen one woman.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Pay, One Woman

Education is implication. It is not the things you say which children respect; when you say things, they very commonly laugh and do the opposite. It is the things you assume which really sink into them. It is the things you forget even to teach that they learn.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Children, Opposites, Laughing

A great curse has fallen upon modern life with the discovery of the vastness of the word Education.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Discovery, Modern Life, Vastness

Instead of the machine being a giant to which the man is the pygmy, we must at last reverse the proportions until man is a giant to whom the machine is the toy.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Men, Giants, Machines

For Scotland has a double dose of the poison called heredity; the sense of blood in the aristocrat, the sense of doom in the Calvinist.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Blood, Scotland, Poison

There is more to life than increasing its speed. Gandhi gave my life to become the person I am right now. Was it worth it? Richard Bach Life exists for the love of music or beautiful things.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Beautiful, Music Love, Speed

Our digestions, going sacredly and silently right, that is the foundation of all poetry.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Foundation, Digestion
Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.146, Simon and Schuster

[Paradox is] truth standing on its head to gain attention.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Attention, Gains, Paradox

THERE are no wise few; for in all men rages the folly of the Fall. Take your strongest, happiest, handsomest, best born, best bred, best instructed men on earth and give them special power for half an hour and because they are men they will begin to [perform] badly.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Wise, Fall, Men

I am a bad reporter because everything seems to me worth reporting; and a bad reviewer because every sentence in every book suggests a separate essay.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Book, Essays, Sentences

If, therefore, nonsense is really to be the literature of the future, it must have its own version of the Cosmos to offer; the world must not only be tragic, romantic, and religious, it must be nonsensical also.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Religious, Cosmos, Literature
"The Defendant". Book by Gilbert K. Chesterton, 1901.

The men of the clique live together because they have the same kind of soul, and their narrowness is a narrowness of spiritual coherence and contentment, like that which exists in hell . . .

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Spiritual, Men, Soul
Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.194, Simon and Schuster

We call a man a bigot or a slave of dogma because he is a thinker who has thought thoroughly and to a definite end.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Men, Ideas, Racist

Brave men are all vertebrates; they have their softness on the surface and their toughness in the middle.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Memorial Day, Men, Remembrance

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