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f89f9b2
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Our friend Tuesday," said the President in a deep voice at once of quietude and volume, "our friend Tuesday doesn't seem to grasp the idea. He dresses up like a gentleman, but he seems to be too great a soul to behave like one. He insists on the ways of the stage conspirator. Now if a gentleman goes about London in a top hat and a frock-coat, no one need know that he is an anarchist. But if a gentleman puts on a top hat and a frock-coat, an..
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disguise
deception
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G.K. Chesterton |
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8990932
|
There again," said Syme irritably, "what is there poetical about being in revolt? You might as well say that it is poetical to be sea-sick. Being sick is a revolt. Both being sick and being rebellious may be the wholesome thing on certain desperate occasions; but I'm hanged if I can see why they are poetical. Revolt in the abstract is - revolting. It's mere vomiting."
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rebellious
revolt
sick
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G.K. Chesterton |
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e30d683
|
It is incomprehensible to me that any thinker can calmly call himself a modernist; he might as well call himself a Thursdayite.
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G.K. Chesterton |
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576298c
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All the jokes about men sitting down on their hats are really theological jokes; they are concerned with the Dual Nature of Man. They refer to the primary paradox that man is superior to all the things around him and yet is at their mercy.
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G.K. Chesterton |
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b35ffec
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There is only one thing that can never go past a certain point in its alliance with oppression--and that is orthodoxy. I may, it is true, twist orthodoxy so as partly to justify a tyrant. But I can easily make up a German philosophy to justify him entirely.
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G.K. Chesterton |
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93025c9
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Is that all?" asked Flambeau after a long pause. "Have we got to the dull truth at last?" "Oh, no," said Father Brown. As the wind died in the most distant pine woods with a long hoot as of mockery Father Brown, with an utterly impassive face, went on: "I only suggested that because you said one could not plausibly connect snuff with clockwork or candles with bright stones. Ten false philosophies will fit the universe; ten false theories wi..
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G.K. Chesterton |
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3e4fd77
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There is something sinister about putting a leprechaun in a workhouse. The only solid comfort is that he certainly will not work.
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medieval-literature
leprechaun
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G.K. Chesterton |
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f6d1ae5
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worst moment for the atheist is when he is really thankful and has nobody to thank.
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G.K. Chesterton |
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72107ac
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Wherever men are still theological there is still some chance of their being logical.
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G.K. Chesterton |
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70e1d60
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Nonsense!' said Gregory, who was very rational when anyone else attempted paradox.
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G.K. Chesterton |
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3e3f2f3
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An artist is identical with an anarchist,' he cried. 'You might transpose the words anywhere. An anarchist is an artist. The man who throws a bomb is an artist, because he prefers a great moment to everything. He sees how much more valuable is one burst of blazing light, one peal of perfect thunder, than the mere common bodies of a few shapeless policemen. An artist disregards all governments, abolishes all conventions. The poet delights in..
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poetry
poet
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G.K. Chesterton |
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a3c6c01
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This is the last and most astounding fact about this faith; that its enemies will use any weapon against it, the swords that cut their own fingers, and the firebrands that burn their own homes. Men who begin to fight the Church for the sake of freedom and humanity end by flinging away freedom and humanity if only they may fight the Church.
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G.K. Chesterton |
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fd3f7c9
|
Roughly speaking, there are three kinds of people in the world...the division follows lines of real psychological cleavage. I do not offer it lightly. It has been the fruit of more than eighteen minutes of earnest reflection and research.
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G.K. Chesterton |
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79862b1
|
The telescope makes the world smaller; it is only the microscope that makes it larger. Before long the world will be cloven with a war between the telescopists and the microscopists. The first study large things and live in a small world; the second study small things and live in a large world.
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G.K. Chesterton |
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dfa3c3a
|
Art is born when the temporary touches the eternal; the shock of beauty is when the irresistible force hits the immovable post.
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G.K. Chesterton |
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436f054
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this clumsy collision of two very impatient forms of ignorance was known as the quarrel of Science and Religion.
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history
religion
science
statement
similarity
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G.K. Chesterton |
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cbcc8bf
|
The author challenges how much sanctity has to do with sameness, as he says saints are as different from each other as those in any group -- even murderers.
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sanctification
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G.K. Chesterton |
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96f2e6d
|
Much of our modern difficulty, in religion and other things, arises merely from this: that we confuse the word "indefinable" with the word "vague." If some one speaks of a spiritual fact as "indefinable" we promptly picture something misty, a cloud with indeterminate edges. But this is an error even in commonplace logic. The thing that cannot be defined is the first thing; the primary fact. It is our arms and legs, our pots and pans, that a..
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G.K. Chesterton |
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91a0471
|
The moment sex ceases to be a servant it becomes a tyrant.
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sex
romance
love
homosexuality
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G.K. Chesterton |
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6912274
|
It is the main earthly business of a human being to make his home, and the immediate surroundings of his home, as symbolic and significant to his own imagination as he can.
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G.K. Chesterton |
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636d92e
|
If you consulted your business experiences instead of your ugly individualistic philosophy, you would know that believing in himself is one of the commonest signs of a rotter.
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self-belief
self-delusion
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G.K. Chesterton |
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49d81ad
|
For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening "Do it again" to the moon."
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G.K. Chesterton |
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f0771e7
|
We are on the road to producing a race of men too mentally modest to believe in the multiplication table. We are in danger of seeing philosophers who doubt the law of gravity as being a mere fancy of their own. Scoffers of old time were too proud to be convinced; but these are too humble to be convinced.
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skepticism
humility
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G.K. Chesterton |
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a295d18
|
If you have, let us say, a theory about man, and if you can only prove it by talking about Plato and George Washington, your theory may be a quite frivolous thing. But if you can prove it by talking about the butler or the postman, then it is serious, because it is universal. So far from it being irreverent to use silly metaphors on serious questions, it is one's duty to use silly metaphors on serious questions. It is the test of one's seri..
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G.K. Chesterton |
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bd2b2b7
|
A man must be orthodox upon most things, or he will never even have time to preach his own heresy.
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G.K. Chesterton |
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d22efad
|
I never said a word against eminent men of science. What I complain of is a vague popular philosophy which supposes itself to be scientific when it it really nothing but a sort of new religion and an uncommonly nasty one.
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science
philosophy
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G.K. Chesterton |
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5024f0a
|
You know I always liked you," said Fisher, quietly, "but I also respect you, which is not always the same thing. You may possibly guess that I like a good many people I don't respect. Perhaps it is my tragedy, perhaps it is my fault. But you are very different, and I promise you this: that I will never try to keep you as somebody to be liked, at the price of your not being respected."
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G.K. Chesterton |
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637baeb
|
Because we are not in a civilization which believes strongly in oracles or sacred places, we see the full frenzy of those who killed themselves to find the sepulcher of Christ. But being in a civilization which does believe in this dogma of fact for facts' sake, we do not see the full frenzy of those who kill themselves to find the North Pole.
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G.K. Chesterton |
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40d3d54
|
For with any recovery from morbidity there must go a certain healthy humiliation. There comes a certain point in such conditions when only three things are possible: first a perpetuation of Satanic pride, secondly tears, and third laughter.
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humility
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G.K. Chesterton |
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c6afb45
|
I have wondered,' said the Marquis, taking a great bite out of a slice of bread and jam, 'whether it wouldn't be better for me to do it with a knife. Most of the best things have been brought off with a knife. And it would be a new emotion to get a knife into a French President and wriggle it around.
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G.K. Chesterton |
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b015eb6
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it needed ten times more courage to look after a leper than to fight for the crown of Sicily
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G.K. Chesterton |
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ee34a59
|
We read a good novel not in order to know more people, but in order to know fewer. Instead of the humming swarm of human beings, relatives, customers, servants, postmen, afternoon callers, tradesmen, strangers who tell us the time, strangers who remark on the weather, beggars, waiters, and telegraph-boys--instead of this bewildering human swarm which passes us every day, fiction asks us to follow one figure (say the postman) consistently th..
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essential
novels
simplicity
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G.K. Chesterton |
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21469cf
|
Until we realize that things might not be we cannot realize that things are.
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G.K. Chesterton |
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198f887
|
The discovery of this strange society was a curiously refreshing thing; to realize that there were ten new trades in the world was like looking at the first ship or the first plough. It made a man feel what he should feel, that he was still in the childhood of the world. That I should have come at last upon so singular a body was, I may say without vanity, not altogether singular, for I have a mania for belonging to as many societies as pos..
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G.K. Chesterton |
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2b0c73f
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Sunday is a fixed star," he said. "You shall see him a falling star," said Syme, and put on his hat. The decision of his gesture drew the Professor vaguely to his feet. "Have you any idea," he asked, with a sort of benevolent bewilderment, "exactly where you are going?" "Yes," replied Syme shortly, "I am going to prevent this bomb being thrown in Paris." "Have you any conception how?" inquired the other. "No," said Syme with equal decision...
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G.K. Chesterton |
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0f3d9e3
|
Stop, stop, stop!' he cried; "stop talking a minute, for I see half. Will God give me strength? Will my brain make the one jump and see all? Heaven help me! I used to be fairly good at thinking. . . Will my head split - or will it see? I see half - I only see half."
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G.K. Chesterton |
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456ad94
|
No man is such a legalist as the good Secularist.
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morality
the-law
secularism
|
G.K. Chesterton |
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c840887
|
The world was old and ended: but you and I were gay; Round us in antic order their crippled vices came-- Lust that had lost its laughter, fear that had lost its shame.
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G.K. Chesterton |
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e1d1967
|
A head can be beaten small enough until it fits the hat.
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violence
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G.K. Chesterton |
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31fbe35
|
I have been asked to explain what I meant by saying that "Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity." I have no notion when I said it or where I said it, or even whether I said it; in the sense that I do not now remember ever saying it at all. But I do know why I said it; if I ever said it at all."
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humor
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G.K. Chesterton |
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ff45e5d
|
By insisting specially on the immanence of God we get introspection, self-isolation, quietism, social indifference - Tibet. By insisting specially on the transcendence of God we get wonder, curiosity, moral and political adventure, righteous indignation - Christendom. Insisting that God is inside man, man is always inside himself. By insisting that God transcends man, man has transcended himself.
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G.K. Chesterton |
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fe3318a
|
General theories are everywhere condemned; the doctrine of the Rights of Man is dismissed with the doctrine of the Fall of Man. Atheism itself is too theological for us to-day. Revolution itself is too much of a system; liberty itself is too much of a restraint. We will have no generalizations. Mr. Bernard Shaw has put the view in a perfect epigram: 'The golden rule is that there is no golden rule.' We are more and more to discuss details i..
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postmodernity
generalizations
modernism
|
G.K. Chesterton |
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6dbe801
|
Now this is the attitude which I attack. It is the huge heresy of Precedent. It is the view that because we have got into a mess we must grow messier to suit it; that because we have taken a wrong turn some time ago we must go forward and not backwards; that because we have lost our way we must lose our map also; and because we have missed our ideal, we must forget it.
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G.K. Chesterton |
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d0d2bf6
|
The men of the east may search the scrolls, For sure fates and fame, But the men that drink the blood of God go singing to their shame.
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G.K. Chesterton |