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He must not merely cling to life, for then he will be a coward, and will not escape. He must not merely wait for death, for then he will be a suicide, and will not escape. He must seek his life in a spirit of furious indifference to 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.
Must
Escape
Life
Suicide
Merely
Wait
Seek
Furious
Waiting
Cling
Death
Coward
Spirit
Indifference

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The fact is that purification and austerity are even more necessary for the appreciation of life and laughter than for anything else. To let no bird fly past unnoticed, to spell the stones and weeds, to have the mind a storehouse of sunset, requires a discipline in pleasure and an education in gratitude.
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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.
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At any innocent tea-table we may easily hear a man say, Life is not worth living. We regard it as we regard the statement that it is a fine day nobody thinks that it can possibly have any serious effect on the man or on the world. And yet if that utterance were really believed, the world would stand on its head.
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All architecture is great architecture after sunset perhaps architecture is really a nocturnal art, like the art of fireworks.
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I don't need a church to tell me I'm wrong where I already know I'm wrong I need a Church to tell me I'm wrong where I think I'm right
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For Tommy, on that hot and empty afternoon, was in a state of mind in which grown-up people go away and write books about their whole world, and stories about what it is like to be married, and plays about the important problems of modern times. Tommy, being only ten years old, was not able to do harm on this large and handsome scale.
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Variability is one of the virtues of a woman. It avoids the crude requirement of polygamy. So long as you have one good wife you are sure to have a spiritual harem.
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Hope means hoping when things are hopeless, or it is no virtue at all... As long as matters are really hopeful, hope is mere flattery or platitude it is only when everything is hopeless that hope begins to be a strength.
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When giving treats to friends or children, give them what they like, emphatically not what is good for them.
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There is a great deal of difference between an eager man who wants to read a book and the tired man who wants a book to read.
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The disadvantage of men not knowing the past is that they do not know the present.
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A man cannot be wise enough to be a great artist without being wise enough to wish to be a philosopher.
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The great ideals of the past failed not by being outlived (which must mean over-lived), but by not being lived enough. Mankind has not passed through the Middle Ages. Rather mankind has retreated from the Middle Ages in reaction and rout. The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.
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I believe in getting into hot water it keeps you clean.
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Whatever else we may say of our own age, for good or evil, nobody is likely to call it an Age of Reason.
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When the chord of monotony is stretched to its tightest, it breaks with the sound of a song.
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When fishes flew and forests walked And figs grew upon thorn, Some moment when the moon was blood Then surely I was born. With monstrous head and sickening cry And ears like errant wings, The devil's walking parody On all four-footed things.
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Well, if I am not drunk, I am mad, replied Syme with perfect calm but I trust I can behave like a gentleman in either condition.
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There are two ways to get enough. One is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less.
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