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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.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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Gilbert K. Chesterton
Age: 62 †
Born: 1874
Born: May 29
Died: 1936
Died: June 14
Autobiographer
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Beaconsfield
Buckinghamshire
Gilbert Keith Chesterton
Gilbert K. Chesterton
Gilbert Chesterton
G.K. Chesterton
G. K. C.
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More quotes by Gilbert K. Chesterton
Do not, I beseech you be troubled by the increase of forces already in dissolution. You have mistake the hour of the night: it is already morning.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
When people begin to ignore human dignity, it will not be long before they begin to ignore human rights.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
A nation is not going mad when it does extravagant things, so long as it does them in an extravagant spirit. But whenever we see things done wildly, but taken tamely, then the State is growing insane.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
Meaninglessness does not come from being weary of pain. Meaninglessness comes from being weary of pleasure.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
Before the gods that made the gods Had seen their sunrise pass, The White Horse of the White Horse Vale Was cut out of the grass.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
Never invoke the gods unless you really want them to appear. It annoys them very much.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
White... is not a mere absence of colour it is a shining and affirmative thing, as fierce as red, as definite as black... God paints in many colours but He never paints so gorgeously, I had almost said so gaudily, as when He paints in white.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
Against a dark sky, all flowers look like fireworks.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
The perplexity of life arises from there being too many interesting things in it for us to be interested properly in any of them.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
O God of earth and altar, Bow down and hear our cry, Our earthly rulers falter, Our people drift and die The walls of gold entomb us, The swords of scorn divide, Take not thy thunder from us, But take away our pride.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
It is not only possible to say a great deal in praise of play it is really possible to say the highest things in praise of it. It might reasonably be maintained that the true object of all human life is play. Earth is a task garden heaven is a playground.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
Youth is always too serious, and just now it is too serious about frivolity.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
Life is serious all the time, but living cannot be. You may have all the solemnity you wish in your neckties, but in anything important (such as sex, death, and religion), you must have mirth or you will have madness.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
Aristocracy: government by the badly educated.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
Where does a wise man hide a leaf? In the forest. But what does he do if there is no forest? He grows a forest to hide it in.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
Grey is a colour that always seems on the eve of changing to some other colour.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
There have been household gods and household saints and household fairies. I am not sure that there have yet been any factory gods or factory saints or factory fairies. I may be wrong, as I am no commericial expert, but I have not heard of them as yet.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
children are simply human beings who are allowed to do what everyone else really desires to do, as for instance, to fly kites, or when seriously wronged to emit prolonged screams for several minutes.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
Nine out of ten of what we call new ideas are simply old mistakes.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
The honest poor can sometimes forget poverty. The honest rich can never forget it.
Gilbert K. Chesterton