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The truth is, of course, that the curtness of the Ten Commandments is an evidence, not of the gloom and narrowness of a religion, but, on the contrary, of its liberality and humanity. It is shorter to state the things forbidden than the things permitted precisely because most things are permitted, and only a few things are forbidden.

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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Gilbert Keith Chesterton
Gilbert K. Chesterton
Gilbert Chesterton
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More quotes by Gilbert K. Chesterton

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Tolerance is a virtue of people who don't believe in anything anymore.
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Every high civilization decays by forgetting obvious things.
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The reason that angels fly is that they take themselves so lightly.
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Modern nature-worship is all upside down. Trees and fields ought to be the ordinary things terraces and temples ought to be extraordinary. I am on the side of the man who lives in the country and wants to go to London.
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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.
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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.
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We are talking about an artist and for the enjoyment of the artist the mask must be to some extent moulded on the face. What he makes outside him must correspond to something inside him he can only make his effects out of some of the materials of his soul.
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Some of the most frantic lies on the face of life are told with modesty and restraint for the simple reason that only modesty and restraint will save them.
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Ten thousand women marched through the streets shouting, 'We will not be dictated to,' and went off and became stenographers.
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London is a riddle. Paris is an explanation.
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Religious unity can look like a carnival and religious liberty can look like a funeral.
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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.
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If I think the universe is triangular, and you think it is square, there cannot be room for two universes. We may argue politely, we may argue humanely, we may argue with great mutual benefit: but, obviously, we must argue.
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The full value of this life can only be got by fighting the violent take it by storm. And if we have accepted everything we have missed something - war. This life of ours is a very enjoyable fight, but a very miserable truce.
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Women are the only realists their whole object in life is to pit their realism against the extravagant, excessive, and occasionally drunken idealism of men.
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It is true that I am of an older fashion much that I love has been destroyed or sent into exile.
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In the end it will not matter to us whether we wrote well or ill whether we fought with flails or reeds. It will matter to us greatly on what side we fought.
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And it did for one wild moment cross my mind that, perhaps, those might not be the very best judges of the relation of religion to happiness who, by their own account, had neither one nor the other.
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It is as healthy to enjoy sentiment as to enjoy jam.
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Men rush towards complexity, but they yearn towards simplicity. They try to be kings but they dream of being shepherds.
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