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We talk of wild animals but man is the only wild animal. It is man that has broken out. All other animals are tame animals following the rugged respectability of the tribe or type.

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.
Following
Animals
Broken
Rugged
Type
Respectability
Animal
Tame
Talk
Tribe
Men
Tribes
Wild

More quotes by Gilbert K. Chesterton

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The wise old fairy tales never were so silly as to say that the prince and the princess lived peacefully ever afterwards. The fairy tales said that the prince and princess lived happily ever afterwards and so they did. They lived happily, although it is very likely that from time to time they threw the furniture at each other.
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Latter-day scepticism is fond of calling itself progressive but scepticism is really reactionary. Scepticism goes back it attempts to unsettle what has already been settled. Instead of trying to break up new fields with its plough, it simply tries to break up the plough.
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In the fairy tale, an incomprehensible happiness rests upon an incomprehensible condition. A box is opened and all evils fly out. A word is forgotten and cities perish. A lamp is lit and love flies away. An apple is eaten and the hope of God is gone.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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The sort of man who admires Italian art while despising Italian religion is a tourist and a cad.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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To downgrade the human mind is bad theology.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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In anything that does cover the whole of your life - in your philosophy and your religion - you must have mirth. If you do not have mirth you will certainly have madness.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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A radical generally meant a man who thought he could somehow pull up the root without affecting the flower. A conservative generally meant a man who wanted to conserve everything except his own reason for conserving anything.
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Realism is simply Romanticism that has lost its reason...that is its reason for existing.
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It is the beginning of all true criticism of our time to realize that it has really nothing to say, at the very moment when it has invented so tremendous a trumpet for saying it.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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We have all forgotten what we really are. All that we call common sense and rationality and practicality and positivism only means that for certain dead levels of our life we forget that we have forgotten. All that we call spirit and art and ecstasy only means that for one awful instant we remember that we forget.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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No sceptical philosopher can ask any questions that may not equally be asked by a tired child on a hot afternoon.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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Is there anyone... who will maintain that the Party System could have been created by people particularly fond of truth?
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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I came to the conclusion that the optimist thought everything good except the pessimist, and that the pessimist thought everything bad, except himself.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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Men invent new ideals because they dare not attempt old ideals. They look forward with enthusiasm, because they are afraid to look back.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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The wine they drink in Paradise They make in Haute Lorraine.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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If I can put one touch of rosy sunset into the life of any man or woman, I shall feel that I have worked with God.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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English experience indicates that when the two great political parties agree about something it is generally wrong.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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There are a great many good people, and a great many sane people here this afternoon. Unfortunately, by a kind of coincidence, all the good people are mad, and all the sane people are wicked.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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St Thomas (Aqinas) loved books and lived on books... When asked for what he thanked God most, he answered simply, ‘I have understood every page I ever read’.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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In real life the people who are most bigoted are the people who have no convictions at all.
Gilbert K. Chesterton