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Morality did not begin by one man saying to another, I will not hit you if you do not hit me there is no trace of such a transaction. There IS a trace of both men having said, We must not hit each other in the holy place.

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.
Men
Trace
Morality
Begin
Holy
Saying
Another
Place
Transaction
Must
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More quotes by Gilbert K. Chesterton

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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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Gratitude, being nearly the greatest of human duties, is also nearly the most difficult.
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There is one thing which gives radiance to everything. It is the idea of something around the corner.
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Laughter has something in it common with the ancient words of faith and inspiration it unfreezes pride and unwinds secrecy it makes people forget themselves in the presence of something greater than themselves.
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It is customary to complain of the bustle and strenuousness of our epoch. But in truth the chief mark of our epoch is a profound laziness and fatigue and the fact is that the real laziness is the cause of the apparent bustle.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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How you think when you lose determines how long it will be until you win.
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There are arguments for atheism, and they do not depend, and never did depend, upon science. They are arguable enough, as far as they go, upon a general survey of life only it happens to be a superficial survey of life.
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When we really worship anything, we love not only its clearness but its obscurity. We exult in its very invisibility.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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Chastity does not mean abstention from sexual wrong it means something flaming, like Joan of Arc.
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The trouble with always trying to preserve the health of the body is that it is so difficult to do without destroying the health of the mind.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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A dead thing goes with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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Brave men are all vertebrates they have their softness on the surface and their toughness in the middle.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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...a figure of speech can often get into a crack too small for a definition.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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There cannot be a nation of millionaires, and there never has been a nation of Utopian comrades but there have been any number of nations of tolerably contented peasants.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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Once I planned to write a book of poems entirely about the things in my pocket. But I found it would be too long and the age of the great epics is past.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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Happiness is a mystery, like religion, and should never be rationalised.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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Democracy is like blowing your nose. You may not do it well, but it's something you ought to do yourself.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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A child's instinct is almost perfect in the matter of fighting. The child's hero is always the man or boy who defends himself suddenly and splendidly against aggression.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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My brain and this world don't fit each other and there's an end of it.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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There are no wise few. Every aristocracy that has ever existed has behaved, in all essential points, exactly like a small mob.
Gilbert K. Chesterton