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The free man owns himself. He can damage himself with either eating or drinking he can ruin himself with gambling. If he does he is certainly a damn fool, and he might possibly be a damned soul but if he may not, he is not a free man any more than a dog.

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
Fool
Ruins
Liberty
Damage
Either
Possibly
Free
Damn
Owns
Doe
Drinking
Damned
May
Dog
Gambling
Soul
Eating
Timeless
Might
Certainly
Ruin

More quotes by Gilbert K. Chesterton

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An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.
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Earnest Freethinkers need not worry themselves so much about the persecutions of the past. Before the Liberal idea is dead or triumphant we shall see wars and persecutions the like of which the world has never seen.
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The humorous look of children is perhaps the most endearing of all the bonds that hold the Cosmos together.
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St Thomas (Aqinas) loved books and lived on books... When asked for what he thanked God most, he answered simply, ‘I have understood every page I ever read’.
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If a man says that he is Jesus Christ, it is no answer to tell him that the world denies his divinity for the world denied Christ's.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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It is the friction of two spiritual things, of tradition and invention, or of substance and symbol, from which the mind takes fire. The creeds condemned as complex have something like the secret of sex they can breed thoughts.
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It is a mathematical fact that if a line be not perfectly directed towards a point, it will actually go further away from it as it comes nearer to it.
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The person who is really in revolt is the optimist, who generally lives and dies in a desperate and suicidal effort to persuade other people how good they are.
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We actually love ourselves more than we love joy.
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Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to that arrogant oligarchy who merely happen to be walking around.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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A tragedy means always a mans struggle with that which is stronger than man.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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The aim of life is appreciation there is no sense in not appreciating things and there is no sense in having more of them if you have less appreciation of them.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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America is the only nation in the world that is founded on creed. That creed is set forth with dogmatic and even theological lucidity in the Declaration of Independence perhaps the only piece of practical politics that is also theoretical politics and also great literature.
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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Large organization is loose organization. Nay, it would be almost as true to say that organization is always disorganization.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies probably because they are generally the same people.
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There are no words to express the abyss between isolation and having one ally.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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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.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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He wondered why the pelican was the symbol of charity, except it was that it wanted a good deal of charity to admire a pelican.
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