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Americans are a very backward people, with all the real virtues of a backward people the patriarchal simplicity and human dignity of a democracy, and a respect for labor uncorrupted by cynicism.

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.
Humans
Simplicity
Real
Dignity
People
Labor
Americans
Uncorrupted
Respect
Patriarchal
Democracy
Backward
Virtue
Cynicism
Human
Virtues

More quotes by Gilbert K. Chesterton

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The one perfectly divine thing, the one glimpse of God's paradise given on earth, is to fight a losing battle - and not lose 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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Price is a crazy and incalculable thing, while Value is an intrinsic and indestructible thing.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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...but this is the real objection to that torrent of modern talk about treating crime as disease, about making prison merely a hygienic environment like a hospital, of healing sin by slow scientific methods. The fallacy of the whole thing is that evil is a matter of active choice whereas disease is not.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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Men always talk about the most important things to perfect strangers.
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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
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But since he stood for England And knew what England means, Unless you give him bacon You must not give him beans.
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If you know what a man's doing, get in front of him but if you want to guess what he's doing keep behind him.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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The past is democratic, because it is a people. The future is despotic, because it is a caprice. Every man is alone in his prediction, just as each man is alone in a dream.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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Idolatry is committed, not merely by setting up false gods, but also by setting up false devils by making men afraid of war or alcohol, or economic law, when they should be afraid of spiritual corruption and cowardice.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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Nothing is certain by uncertainty.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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A stiff apology is a second insult... The injured party does not want to be compensated because he has been wronged he wants to be healed because he has been hurt.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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There is only one thing that stands in our midst, attenuated and threatened, but enthroned in some power like a ghost of the Middle Ages: the Trade Unions.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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The truth is that it is our attitude towards children that is right, and our attitude towards grown-up people that is wrong.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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One can hardly think too little of one's self. One can hardly think too much of one's soul.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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You'll never find the solution if you don't see the problem.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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Moral issues are always terribly complex for someone without principles.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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Men spoke much in my boyhood about restricted or ruined men of genius: and it was common to say that many a man was a Great Might-Have-Been. To me it's a more solid and startling fact that any man in the street is a Great Might-Not-Have-Been.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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You cannot love a thing without wanting to fight for it.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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The woman does not work because the man tells her to work and she obeys. On the contrary, the woman works because she has told the man to work and he hasn’t obeyed.
Gilbert K. Chesterton