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Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes

Gilbert K. Chesterton quotes about life

English Writer May 29, 1874 – June 14, 1936

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It is as if a man were asked, 'What is the use of a hammer?' and answered, 'To make hammers'; and when asked, 'And of those hammers, what is the use?' answered, 'To make hammers again'. Just as such a man would be perpetually putting off the question of the ultimate use of carpentry, so Mr. Wells and all the rest of us are by these phrases successfully putting off the question of the ultimate value of the human life. Gilbert K. Chesterton
His soul swayed in a vertigo of moral indecision. He had only to snap the thread of a rash vow made to a villainous society, and all his life could be as open and sunny as the square beneath him. He had, on the other other hand, only to keep his antiquated honour, and be delivered inch by inch into the power of this great enemy of mankind, whose very intellect was a torture-chamber. Whenever he looked down into the square he saw the comfortable policeman, a pillar of common sense and common... Gilbert K. Chesterton
We now have a strong desire for living combined with a strange carelessness about dying. We desire life like water and yet are ready to drink death like wine. Gilbert K. Chesterton
There is a law written in the darkest of the Books of Life, and it is this: If you look at a thing nine hundred and ninety-nine times, you are perfectly safe; if you look at it the thousandth time, you are in frightful danger of seeing it for the first time. Gilbert K. Chesterton
Gilbert K. Chesterton quote: "Stories of magic alone can express my sense that life is not..."
Stories of magic alone can express my sense that life is not only a pleasure but a kind of eccentric privilege. Gilbert K. Chesterton
The materialist theory of history, that all politics and ethics are the expression of economics, is a very simple fallacy indeed. It consists simply of confusing the necessary conditions of life with the normal preoccupations of life, that are quite a different thing. It is like saying that because a man can only walk about on two legs, therefore he never walks about except to buy shoes and stockings. Gilbert K. Chesterton
The most incredible thing about miracles is that they happen. …there is in life an element of elfin coincidence which people on the prosaic may perpetually miss. …wisdom should not reckon on the unforeseen. Gilbert K. Chesterton
The Iliad is only great because all life is a battle, The Odyssey because all life is a journey, The Book of Job because all life is a riddle. Gilbert K. Chesterton
He must not merely cling to life, for then he will be a coward, and will not escape. He must not merely wait for death, for then he will be a suicide, and will not escape. He must seek his life in a spirit of furious indifference to it. Gilbert K. Chesterton
My first and last philosophy ... I learnt in the nursery... The things I believed then, the things I believe most now, are the things called fairy tales... They are not fantasies: compared with them other things are fantastic... Fairyland is nothing but the sunny country of common sense. It is not earth that judges heaven, but heaven that judges earth ... I knew the magic beanstalk before I tasted beans; I was sure of the Man in the Moon before I was certain of the moon. I am concerned with a... Gilbert K. Chesterton
Gilbert K. Chesterton quote: "Life was a fly that faded, and death a drone that stung; The..."
Life was a fly that faded, and death a drone that stung; The world was very old indeed Gilbert K. Chesterton
Women are the only realists; their whole object in life is to pit their realism against the extravagant, excessive, and occasionally drunken idealism of men. Gilbert K. Chesterton
We are to regard existence as a raid or great adventure; it is to be judged, therefore, not by what calamities it encounters, but by what flag it follows and what high town it assaults. The most dangerous thing in the world is to be alive; one is always in danger of one's life. But anyone who shrinks from that is a traitor to the great scheme and experiment of being. Gilbert K. Chesterton
What is the modern mind?" asked Grant."Oh, it's enlightened, you know, and progressive --and faces the facts of life seriously." At this moment another roar of laughter came from within. Gilbert K. Chesterton
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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