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Men reform a thing by removing the reality from it, and then do not know what to do with the unreality that is left.

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.
Reality
Thing
Unreality
Men
Removing
Reform
Evolution
Progress
Left

More quotes by Gilbert K. Chesterton

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As for the general view that the Church was discredited by the War—they might as well say that the Ark was discredited by the Flood. When the world goes wrong, it proves rather that the Church is right. The Church is justified, not because her children do not sin, but because they do.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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The full potentialities of human fury cannot be reached until a friend of both parties tactfully intervenes.
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If you convey to a woman that something ought to be done, there is always a dreadful danger that she will suddenly do it.
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Exactly at the instant when hope ceases to be reasonable it begins to be useful.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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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
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A great classic means a man whom one can praise without having read.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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The Museum is not meant either for the wanderer to see by accident or for the pilgrim to see with awe. It is meant for the mere slave of a routine of self- education to stuff himself with every sort of incongruous intellectual food in one indigestible meal.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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Meaninglessness does not come from being weary of pain. Meaninglessness comes from being weary of pleasure.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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I have argued with him on almost every subject in the world, and we have always been on opposite sides, without affectation or animosity... It is necessary to disagree with him as much as I do, in order to admire him as I do and I am proud of him as a foe even more than as a friend.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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I believe your own accent is inimitable, though I shall practice it in my bath.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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The artistic temperament is a disease that affects amateurs. Artists of a large and wholesome vitality get rid of their art easily, as they breathe easily or perspire easily. But in artists of less force, the thing becomes a pressure, and produces a definite pain, which is called the artistic temperament.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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I may not practice what I preach but God forbid I should preach what I practice
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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To downgrade the human mind is bad theology.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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. . . For friendship implies individuality whereas comradeship really implies the temporary subordination, if not the temporary swamping of individuality. Friends are the better for being two but comrades are the better for being two million.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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Is ditchwater dull? Naturalists with microscopes have told me that it teems with quiet fun.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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All good men are international. Nearly all bad men are cosmopolitan. If we are to be international we must be national.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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Whatever the word great means, Dickens was what it means.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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We are passing into a social phase in which unless a heroic effort is made for human dignity and freedom, gold will be the sole method of government and therefore the sole standard of manners.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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Are you a devil? I am a man, answered Father Brown gravely and therefore have all devils in my heart.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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Chastity does not mean abstention from sexual wrong it means something flaming, like Joan of Arc.
Gilbert K. Chesterton