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We are justified in enforcing good morals, for they belong to all mankind but we are not justified in enforcing good manners, for good manners always mean our own manners.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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Gilbert K. Chesterton
Age: 62 †
Born: 1874
Born: May 29
Died: 1936
Died: June 14
Autobiographer
Biographer
Crime Writer
Essayist
Historian
Illustrator
Journalist
Literary Historian
Novelist
Opinion Journalist
Philosopher
Beaconsfield
Buckinghamshire
Gilbert Keith Chesterton
Gilbert K. Chesterton
Gilbert Chesterton
G.K. Chesterton
G. K. C.
Always
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Manners
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Morality
Mankind
Moral
Enforcing
Mean
Courtesy
Good
Morals

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Art is born when the temporary touches the eternal.
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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.
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Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.
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Modern man is educated to understand foreign languages and misunderstand foreigners.
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The purpose of Compulsory Education is to deprive the common people of their commonsense.
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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.
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All government is an ugly necessity.
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When you with velvets mantled o'er, Defy December's tempests frore, Oh! spare one garment from your store, To clothe the poor at Christmas.
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A good novel tells us the truth about its hero but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.
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The simplification of anything is always sensational.
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The word 'heresy' not only means no longer being wrong it practically means being clear-headed and courageous. The word 'orthodoxy' not only no longer means being right it practically means being wrong
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Moral issues are always terribly complex for someone without principles.
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All conservatism is based upon the idea that if you leave things alone you leave them as they are. But you do not. If you leave a thing alone you leave it to a torrent of change.
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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.
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Variability is one of the virtues of a woman. It avoids the crude requirement of polygamy. So long as you have one good wife you are sure to have a spiritual harem.
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The Declaration of Independence dogmatically bases all rights on the fact that God created all men equal and it is right for if they were not created equal, they were certainly evolved unequal. There is no basis for democracy except in a dogma about the divine origin of man.
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Journalism largely consists of saying 'Lord Jones is Dead' to people who never knew that Lord Jones was alive.
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Happy is he who still loves something he loved in the nursery: He has not been broken in two by time he is not two men, but one, and he has saved not only his soul but his life.
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The great ideals of the past failed not by being outlived (which must mean over-lived), but by not being lived enough. Mankind has not passed through the Middle Ages. Rather mankind has retreated from the Middle Ages in reaction and rout. The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.
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