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To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it.
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.
Thing
Orthodoxy
Vengeance
Morality
Action
Right
More quotes by Gilbert K. Chesterton
Saint George he was for England, And before he killed the dragon he drank a pint of English ale out of an English flagon.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
And it is always the humble man who talks too much the proud man watches himself too closely.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
Poets do not go mad, but chess players do.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
A detective story generally describes six living men discussing how it is that a man is dead. A modern philosophic story generally describes six dead men discussing how any man can possibly be alive.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
He wondered why the pelican was the symbol of charity, except it was that it wanted a good deal of charity to admire a pelican.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
All architecture is great architecture after sunset.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
Shall I tell you the secret of the whole world? It is that we have only known the back of the world. We see everything from behind, and it looks brutal. That is not a tree, but the back of a tree. That is not a cloud, but the back of a cloud. Cannot you see that everything is stooping and hiding a face? If we could only get round in front--
Gilbert K. Chesterton
Now there is any amount of this nonsense cropping up among American cranks. Anybody may propose to establish coercive Eugenics or enforce psychoanalysis that is, enforce confession without absolution.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
The simple sense of wonder at the shapes of things, and at their exuberant independence of our intellectual standards and our trivial definitions, is the basis of spirituality.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
There is no obligation on us to be richer, or busier, or more efficient, or more productive, or more progressive, or any way worldlier or wealthier, if it does not make us happier.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
The sort of man who admires Italian art while despising Italian religion is a tourist and a cad.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
Thanks are the highest form of thought.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
When we were children we were grateful to those who filled our stockings at Christmas time. Why are we not grateful to God for filling our stockings with legs?
Gilbert K. Chesterton
A man does not know what he is saying until he knows what he is not saying.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
A dead thing goes with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
Progress is a comparative of which we have not settled the superlative.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
Soldiers have many faults, but they have one redeeming merit they are never worshippers of force. Soldiers more than any other men are taught severely and systematically that might is not right. The fact is obvious. The might is in the hundred men who obey. The right (or what is held to be right) is in the one man who commands them.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
The thing that cannot be defined is the first thing the primary fact.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
Men rush towards complexity, but they yearn towards simplicity. They try to be kings but they dream of being shepherds.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
No man must be superior to the things that are common to men.... Not only are we all in the same boat, but we are all seasick.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
