It is shorter to state the things forbidden than the things permitted; precisely because most things are permitted and only a few things forbidden.
GILBERT K. CHESTERTONThere cannot be a nation of millionaires, and there never has been a nation of Utopian comrades; but there have been any number of nations of tolerably contented peasants.
More Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes
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There are some desires that are not desirable.
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Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity.
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The more I considered Christianity, the more I found that while it had established a rule and order, the chief aim of that order was to give room for good things to run wild.
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON -
The Reformer is always right about what’s wrong. However, he’s often wrong about what is right.
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON -
The Mass is very long and tiresome unless one loves God.
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Original sin is the only doctrine that’s been empirically validated by 2,000 years of human history.
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Hope is the power of being cheerful in circumstances which we know to be desperate.
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But the truth is that it is only by believing in God that we can ever criticise the Government. Once abolish the God, and the Government becomes the God.
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON -
A child’s instinct is almost perfect in the matter of fighting. The child’s hero is always the man or boy who defends himself suddenly and splendidly against aggression.
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON -
We’re all in the same boat, and we’re all seasick.
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One elephant having a trunk was odd; but all elephants having trunks looked like a plot.
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The historic glory of America lies in the fact that it is the one nation that was founded like a church. That is, it was founded on a faith that was not merely summed up after it had exited, but was defined before it existed.
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Laughter has something in it common with the ancient words of faith and inspiration; it unfreezes pride and unwinds secrecy; it makes people forget themselves in the presence of something greater than themselves.
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Modern toleration is really a tyranny. It is a tyranny because it is a silence.
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A great man is not a man so strong that he feels less than other men; he is a man so strong that he feels more.
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON