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Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes - Page 47

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I am the fool in this story, and no rebel shall hurl me from my throne.

I am the fool in this story, and no rebel shall hurl me from my throne.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Rebel, Thrones, Stories
Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.6, Simon and Schuster

I did try to found a little heresy of my own; and when I had put the last touches to it, I discovered that it was orthodoxy.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Trying, Littles, Lasts
Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.7, Simon and Schuster

And though St. John saw many strange monsters in his vision, he saw no creature so wild as one of his own commentators.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Vision, Monsters, Saws
Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.10, Simon and Schuster

Art is limitation; the essence of every picture is the frame. If you draw a giraffe, you must draw him with a long neck. If in your bold creative way you hold yourself free to draw a giraffe with a short neck, you will really find that you are not free to draw a giraffe.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Art, Essence, Long
Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.28, Simon and Schuster

somehow one must love the world without being worldly.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
World, Worldly
Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.58, Simon and Schuster

When the chord of monotony is stretched to its tightest, it breaks with the sound of a song.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Song, Sound, Break

There again," said Syme irritably, "what is there poetical about being in revolt? You might as well say that it is poetical to be sea-sick. Being sick is a revolt. Both being sick and being rebellious may be the wholesome thing on certain desperate occasions; but I'm hanged if I can see why they are poetical...It is things going right," he cried, "that is poetical! Our digestions, for instance, going sacredly and silently right, that is the foundation of all poetry...the most poetical thing in the world is not being sick.

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

An event is not any more intrinsically intelligible or unintelligible because of the pace at which it moves. For a man who does not believe in a miracle, a slow miracle would be just as incredible as a swift one. The Greek witch may have turned sailors to swine with a stroke of the wand. But to see a naval gentleman of our acquaintance looking a little more like a pig every day, till he ended with four trotters and a curly tail, would not be any more soothing. It might be rather more creepy and uncanny.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Believe, Moving, Men

My life is passed in making bad jokes and seeing them turn into true prophecies.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Life Is, Bad Jokes, Prophecy

Morality did not begin by one man saying to another, "I will not hit you if you do not hit me"; there is no trace of such a transaction. There IS a trace of both men having said, "We must not hit each other in the holy place.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Men, Holy Places, Morality
Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.49, Simon and Schuster

Surely we cannot take an open question like the supernatural and shut it with a bang, turning the key of the madhouse on all the mystics of history. You cannot take the region of the unknown and calmly say that, though you know nothing about it, you know all the gates are locked. We do not know enough about the unknown to know that it is unknowable.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Keys, Bangs, Enough

I had always felt life first as a story: and if there is a story there is a story-teller

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Stories, Firsts, Felt
Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.44, Simon and Schuster

I am more than a devil; I am a man. I can do the one thing which Satan himself cannot do— I can die.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Men, Devil, Satan

I said to him, "Shall I tell you where the men are who believe most in themselves? For I can tell you. I know of men who believe in themselves more colossally than Napoleon or Caesar. I know where flames the fixed star of certainty and success. I can guide you to the thrones of the Super-men. The men who really believe in themselves are all in lunatic asylums.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Stars, Believe, Men
Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.8, Simon and Schuster

If the devil tells you something is too fearful to look at, look at it. If he says something is too terrible to hear, hear it. If you think some truth unbearable, bear it.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Thinking, Devil, Looks
"The Purple Wig". Book by G. K. Chesterton, November 26, 2012.

That young man with the long, auburn hair and the impudent face - that young man was not really a poet; but surely he was a poem.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Men, Hair, Long
Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.142, Simon and Schuster

The most poetical thing in the world is not being sick.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Sick, World, Being Sick
Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.143, Simon and Schuster

of being strong and brave. The strong can not be brave. Only the weak can be brave; and yet again, in practice, only those who can be brave can be trusted, in time of doubt, to be strong.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Inspirational, Strong, Practice
Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.156, Simon and Schuster

I am going to hold a pistol to the head of the Modern Man. But I shall not use it to kill him–only to bring him to life.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Men, Use, Pistols

She had never really listened to anyone in her life; which, some said, was why she had survived.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Said, Survived

Christianity got over the difficulty of combining furious opposites, by keeping them both, and keeping them both furious.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Opposites, Balance, Christianity
Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.70, Simon and Schuster

Think of all those ages through which men have had the courage to die, and then remember that we have actually fallen to talking about having the courage to live.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Men, Thinking, Talking

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?

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Sweet, Children, Grateful
Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.39, Simon and Schuster

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.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
People, Mad, Religion
Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.75, Simon and Schuster

He must not merely cling to life, for then he will be a coward, and will not escape. He must not merely wait for death, for then he will be a suicide, and will not escape. He must seek his life in a spirit of furious indifference to it.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Suicide, Waiting, Coward
Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.69, Simon and Schuster

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