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Man is always something worse or something better than an animal and a mere argument from animal perfection never touches him at all. Thus, in sex no animal is either chivalrous or obscene. And thus no animal invented anything so bad as drunkeness - or so good as drink.

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.
Always
Sex
Touches
Never
Drink
Timeless
Men
Either
Invented
Animal
Thus
Anything
Argument
Better
Perfection
Something
Worse
Chivalrous
Good
Mere
Obscene

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The whole secret of mysticism is this: that man can understand everything by the help of something he cannot understand.
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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.
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The vulgar man is always the most distinguished, for the very desire to be distinguished is vulgar.
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The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.
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Romance is the combination of something that is strange with something that is secure.
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We fear men so much, because we fear God so little. One fear cures another. When man's terror scares you, turn your thoughts to the wrath of God.
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The men of the clique live together because they have the same kind of soul, and their narrowness is a narrowness of spiritual coherence and contentment, like that which exists in hell . . .
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[A pacifist is] the last and least excusable on the list of the enemies of society.
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In matters of truth the fact that you don't want to publish something is, nine times out of ten, a proof that you ought to publish it.
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A modern man may disapprove of some of his sweeping reforms, and approve others but finds it difficult not to admire even where he does not approve.
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The great saint may be said to mix all his thoughts with thanks. All goods look better when they look like gifts.
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It is better to speak wisdom foolishly like the saints than to speak folly wisely like the deans.
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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.
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The determining bulk of Scotch people had heard of golf ever since they had heard of God and often considered the two as of equal importance.
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A man must be orthodox upon most things, or he will never even have time to preach his own heresy.
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The simple sense of wonder at the shapes of things, and at their exuberant independence of our intellectual standards and our trivial definitions, is the basis of spirituality.
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To be simple is the best thing in the world to be modest is the next best thing. I am not sure about being quiet.
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CIVILISATION is not to be judged by the rapidity of communication, but by the value of what is communicated.
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Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of readiness to die.
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