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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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Gilbert K. Chesterton
Age: 62 †
Born: 1874
Born: May 29
Died: 1936
Died: June 14
Autobiographer
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Crime Writer
Essayist
Historian
Illustrator
Journalist
Literary Historian
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Philosopher
Beaconsfield
Buckinghamshire
Gilbert Keith Chesterton
Gilbert K. Chesterton
Gilbert Chesterton
G.K. Chesterton
G. K. C.
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More quotes by Gilbert K. Chesterton

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The wise old fairy tales never were so silly as to say that the prince and the princess lived peacefully ever afterwards. The fairy tales said that the prince and princess lived happily ever afterwards and so they did. They lived happily, although it is very likely that from time to time they threw the furniture at each other.
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Lord! what a strange world in which a man cannot remain unique even by taking the trouble to go mad!
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Eugenics asserts that all men must be so stupid that they cannot manage their own affairs and also so clever that they can manage each other's.
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We cannot fling ourselves into the blank future we can only call up images from the past. This being so, the important principle follows, that how many images we have largely depends on how much past we have.
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Idolatry is when you worship what you should use, and use what you should worship.
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You can never have a revolution in order to establish a democracy. You must have a democracy in order to have a revolution.
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There are two ways of getting home and one of them is to stay there.
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We talk of wild animals but man is the only wild animal. It is man that has broken out. All other animals are tame animals following the rugged respectability of the tribe or type.
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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.
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Hope means hoping when everything seems hopeless.
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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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If the apple hit Newton’s nose, Newton’s nose hit the apple.
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Students of popular science... are always insisting that Christianity and Buddhism are very much alike, especially Buddhism. This is generally believed, and I believed it myself until I read a book giving the reasons for it.
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Literature and fiction are two entirely different things. Literature is a luxury fiction is a necessity.
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Journalism largely consists of saying 'Lord Jones is Dead' to people who never knew that Lord Jones was alive.
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Art is the signature of man.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
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Bigotry may be roughly defined as the anger of men who have no opinions.
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The original quality in any man of imagination is imagery.
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No man knows he is young while he is young.
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We do not want, as the newspapers say, a church that will move with the world. We want a church that will move the world.
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