At the back of our brains is a blaze of astonishment at our own existence. The object of the artistic and spiritual life is to dig for this sunrise of wonder.
GILBERT K. CHESTERTONBut 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.
More Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes
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One may understand the cosmos, but never the ego; the self is more distant than any star.
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON -
The present condition of fame is merely fashion.
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON -
Catholic doctrine and discipline may be walls; but they are the walls of a playground.
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON -
The Mass is very long and tiresome unless one loves God.
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These are the days when the Christian is expected to praise every creed except his own.
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People generally quarrel because they cannot argue.
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON -
There are no words to express the abyss between isolation and having one ally. It may be conceded to the mathematician that four is twice two. But two is not twice one; two is two thousand times one.
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON -
I never could see anything wrong in sensationalism; and I am sure our society is suffering more from secrecy than from flamboyant revelations.
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON -
People talk of the pathos and failure of plain women; but it is a more terrible thing that a beautiful woman may succeed in everything but womanhood.
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON -
All science, even the divine science, is a sublime detective story. Only it is not set to detect why a man is dead; but the darker secret of why he is alive.
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON -
Dipsomaniac and the abstainer are not only both mistaken, but they both make the same mistake. They both regard wine as a drug and not as a drink.
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON -
Hope means hoping when everything seems hopeless.
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON -
Daybreak is a never-ending glory; getting out of bed is a never ending nuisance.
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON -
A society is in decay, final or transitional, when common sense really becomes uncommon.
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON -
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 -
Against a dark sky, all flowers look like fireworks.
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON -
Comradeship is quite a different thing from friendship. . .
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON -
Progress should mean that we are always changing the world to fit the vision, instead we are always changing the vision.
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON -
I agree with the realistic Irishman who said he preferred to prophesy after the event.
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON -
Christianity met the mythological search for romance by being a story and the philosophical search for truth by being a true story.
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON -
Very few reputations are gained by unsullied virtue.
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON -
Tolerance is the virtue of people who do not believe in anything.
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON -
Truths turn into dogmas the minute they are disputed.
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON -
The State did not own men so entirely, even when it could send them to the stake, as it sometimes does now where it can send them to the elementary school.
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON -
There are some desires that are not desirable.
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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