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Man seems to be capable of great virtues but not of small virtues; capable of defying his torturer but not of keeping his temper.


Gilbert K. Chesterton

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Man seems to be capable of great virtues but not of small virtues; capable of defying his torturer b...
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON Man seems to be capable of great virtues but not of small virtues; capable of defying his torturer b...
G. K. CHESTERTON It doesn't matter that Cathy was what I have called a monster. Perhaps we can't understand Cathy, bu...
JOHN STEINBECK The philosophic aim of education must be to get each one out of his isolated class and into the one ...
PAUL GOODMAN ...in order that a man may be happy, it is necessary that he should not only be capable of his work,...
JOHN RUSKIN The greatest minds are capable of the greatest vices as well as of the greatest virtues.
RENE DESCARTES He is no great heir that inherits not his ancestor's virtues
PROVERB But who hath seen the Grocer Treat housemaids to his tea Or crack a bottle of fish sauce Or stand a ...
G. K. CHESTERTON Instead of looking for miracles why believe so strong in invisible virtues like dignity of labor.
SUNDAY ADELAJA You love another person not because of his virtues- that is infatuation- but in spite of his faults,...
SUDHIR KAKAR I know that man is capable of great deeds. But if he isn't capable of great emotion, well, he leaves...
ALBERT CAMUS One does not have to forgive if forgiveness is not one of his virtues. But one can forget and never ...
BORIS ZUBRY [I]t is the writer's duty to write fiction which promotes virtue, the good, the beautiful, and above...
EDWARD ABBEY I shiver, thinking about how easy it is to be totally wrong about people-- to see one tiny part of t...
LAUREN OLIVER His virtues are infinite none of them can be described.
GURU NANAK Royalty consists not in vain pomp, but in great virtues
AGESILAUS Not to be cheered by praise, not to be grieved by blame, but to know thoroughly ones own virtues or ...
SASKYA PANDITA Not to be cheered by praise, not to be grieved by blame, but to know thoroughly one's own virtues or...
SATCHEL PAIGE Capitalists are no more capable of self-sacrifice than a man is capable of lifting himself up by his...
VLADIMIR LENIN Capitalists are no more capable of self-sacrifice than a man is capable of lifting himself up by his...
LENIN (VLADIMIR ULYANOV) Any man, in the right situation, is capable of murder. But not any man is capable of being a good ca...
JACK HANDY Humanity is not perfect in any fashion; no more in the case of evil than in that of good. The crimin...
PIERRE-AMBROISE CHODERLOS DE LACLOS Stupidity is also a gift of God, but one mustn't misuse it.
POPE JOHN PAUL II Humanity should question itself, once more, about the absurd and always unfair phenomenon of war, on...
POPE JOHN PAUL II Science can purify religion from error and superstition. Religion can purify science from idolatry a...
POPE JOHN PAUL II Wars generally do not resolve the problems for which they are fought and therefore... prove ultimate...
POPE JOHN PAUL II I kiss the soil as if I placed a kiss on the hands of a mother, for the homeland is our earthly moth...
POPE JOHN PAUL II The vow of celibacy is a matter of keeping one's word to Christ and the Church. a duty and a pro...
POPE JOHN PAUL II From now on it is only through a conscious choice and through a deliberate policy that humanity can ...
POPE JOHN PAUL II Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song.
POPE JOHN PAUL II An excuse is worse and more terrible than a lie, for an excuse is a lie guarded.
POPE JOHN PAUL II Love is never defeated, and I could add, the history of Ireland proves it.
POPE JOHN PAUL II The great danger for family life, in the midst of any society whose idols are pleasure, comfort and ...
POPE JOHN PAUL II Today, for the first time in history, a Bishop of Rome sets foot on English soil. This fair land, on...
POPE JOHN PAUL II Pervading nationalism imposes its dominion on man today in many different forms and with an aggressi...
POPE JOHN PAUL II The historical experience of socialist countries has sadly demonstrated that collectivism does not d...
POPE JOHN PAUL II To maintain a joyful family requires much from both the parents and the children. Each member of the...
POPE JOHN PAUL II Young people are threatened... by the evil use of advertising techniques that stimulate the natural ...
POPE JOHN PAUL II When freedom does not have a purpose, when it does not wish to know anything about the rule of law e...
POPE JOHN PAUL II You will reciprocally promise love, loyalty and matrimonial honesty. We only want for you this day t...
POPE JOHN PAUL II The future starts today, not tomorrow.
POPE JOHN PAUL II The unworthy successor of Peter who desires to benefit from the immeasurable wealth of Christ feels ...
POPE JOHN PAUL II Social justice cannot be attained by violence. Violence kills what it intends to create.
POPE JOHN PAUL II Marriage is an act of will that signifies and involves a mutual gift, which unites the spouses and b...
POPE JOHN PAUL II The United Nations organization has proclaimed 1979 as the Year of the Child. Are the children to re...
POPE JOHN PAUL II Violence and arms can never resolve the problems of men.
POPE JOHN PAUL II Have no fear of moving into the unknown. Simply step out fearlessly knowing that I am with you, ther...
POPE JOHN PAUL II There are people and nations, Mother, that I would like to say to you by name. I entrust them to you...
POPE JOHN PAUL II I have a sweet tooth for song and music. This is my Polish sin.
POPE JOHN PAUL II Stillness is the most powerful virtue against all odds in life.
ADITYA AJMERA I want nothing to do with any religion concerned with keeping the masses satisfied to live in hunger...
JAWAHARLAL NEHRU Not to be cheered by praise, not to be grieved by blame, but to know thoroughly one's own virtue...
SATCHEL PAIGE Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.
CICERO Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.
CICERO Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.
MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.
MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO Only a fraction of a man's virtues should be enumerated in his presence
THE TALMUD Dogs are loyal, patient, fearless, forgiving, and capable of pure love. Virtues that few people get ...
M.K. CLINTON That's really sad," Beth said softly, "To have no one left.
R.J. SCOTT Not to be cheered by praise,
Not to be grieved by blame,
But to know thoroughly ones own vir...
SASKYA PANDITA The scars of others should teach us caution.
ST. JEROME They talk like angels but they live like men.
ST. JEROME Humility is the foundation of all the other virtues hence, in the soul in which this virtue does not...
SAINT AUGUSTINE The most High approveth not the gifts of the wicked.
SAINT PATRICK I see that already in this present world I am exalted above measure by the Lord. And I was not worth...
SAINT PATRICK He that offereth sacrifice of the goods of the poor is as one that sacrificeth the son in the presen...
SAINT PATRICK I was freeborn according to the flesh; I am born of a father who was a decurion, but I sold my noble...
SAINT PATRICK I have had the good fortune through my God that I should never abandon his people whom I have acquir...
SAINT PATRICK The Lord discovered to me a sense of my unbelief that, though late, I should remember my transgressi...
SAINT PATRICK Let who will scoff and revile - I will not remain silent; neither will I conceal the signs and wonde...
SAINT PATRICK I only seek in my old age to perfect that which I had not before thoroughly learned in my youth, bec...
SAINT PATRICK I have a Creator who knew all things, even before they were made - even me, his poor little child.
SAINT PATRICK I have vowed to my God to teach the heathen, though I be despised by some.
SAINT PATRICK No one should ever say that it was my ignorance if I did or showed forth anything however small acco...
SAINT PATRICK The Lord opened the understanding of my unbelieving heart, so that I should recall my sins.
SAINT PATRICK It was not any grace in me, but God that put this earnest care into my heart, that I should be one o...
SAINT PATRICK Sufficient for me is that honour which is not seen of men but is felt in the heart, as faithful is H...
SAINT PATRICK Before I was humiliated I was like a stone that lies in deep mud, and he who is mighty came and in h...
SAINT PATRICK I am Patrick, a sinner, most uncultivated and least of all the faithful and despised in the eyes of ...
SAINT PATRICK The Lord is greater than all: I have said enough.
SAINT PATRICK Among the many signs of a lively faith and hope we have in eternal life, one of the surest is not be...
SAINT IGNATIUS I can love a person in this life only insofar as he tries to advance in the praise and service of Go...
SAINT IGNATIUS Some indeed have tears naturally, when the higher motion of the soul makes itself felt in the lower,...
SAINT IGNATIUS The principal end both of my father and of myself in the conquest of India... has been the propagati...
SAINT IGNATIUS We should love the body insofar as it is obedient and helpful to the soul, since the soul, with the ...
SAINT IGNATIUS We should always be disposed to believe that that which appears white is really black, if the hierar...
SAINT IGNATIUS It is one thing to be eloquent and charming in profane speech, and another when the one speaking as ...
SAINT IGNATIUS Remember that bodily exercise, when it is well ordered, as I have said, is also prayer by means of w...
SAINT IGNATIUS In the light of the Divine Goodness, it seems to me, though others may think differently, that ingra...
SAINT IGNATIUS Occupy yourself in beholding and bewailing your own imperfections rather than contemplating the impe...
SAINT IGNATIUS Be generous to the poor orphans and those in need. The man to whom our Lord has been liberal ought n...
SAINT IGNATIUS Teach us to give and not to count the cost.
SAINT IGNATIUS In the fallen there is danger of pride and vainglory, since they prefer their own judgment to the ju...
SAINT IGNATIUS May God our Lord never let me harm anyone when I cannot help him!
SAINT IGNATIUS True, I am in love with suffering, but I do not know if I deserve the honor.
SAINT IGNATIUS May the perfect grace and eternal love of Christ our Lord be our never-failing protection and help.
SAINT IGNATIUS For those who love, nothing is too difficult, especially when it is done for the love of our Lord Je...
SAINT IGNATIUS If God has given you the world's goods in abundance, it is to help you gain those of Heaven and ...
SAINT IGNATIUS Knowledge is sometimes superfluous: when we need it, we have it not.
SAINT BERNARD For every benefit conferred, God is to be praised in his gifts. Otherwise when the time of judgment ...
SAINT BERNARD

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GILBERT K. CHESTERTON Coincidences are spiritual puns.
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GILBERT K. CHESTERTON A yawn is a silent shout.
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere.
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because generally t...
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON When we really worship anything, we love not only its clearness but its obscurity. We exult in its v...
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON Without education we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously.
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GILBERT K. CHESTERTON It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it.
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GILBERT K. CHESTERTON Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another.
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GILBERT K. CHESTERTON You could compile the worst book in the world entirely out of selected passages from the best writer...
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GILBERT K. CHESTERTON The traveler sees what he sees, the tourist sees what he has come to see.
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GILBERT K. CHESTERTON All slang is metaphor, and all metaphor is poetry.
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.
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GILBERT K. CHESTERTON An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wron...
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GILBERT K. CHESTERTON The only way to be sure of catching a train is to miss the one before it.
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON The paradox of courage is that a man must be a little careless of his life even in order to keep it.
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul...
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON A stiff apology is a second insult... The injured party does not want to be compensated because he h...
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON A businessman is the only man who is forever apologizing for his occupation.
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON Democracy means government by the uneducated, while aristocracy means government by the badly educat...
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON Chastity does not mean abstention from sexual wrong; it means something flaming, like Joan of Arc.
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GILBERT K. CHESTERTON The worst of work nowadays is what happens to people when they cease to work.
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON People generally quarrel because they cannot argue.
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON Never invoke the gods unless you really want them to appear. It annoys them very much.
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GILBERT K. CHESTERTON A teacher who is not dogmatic is simply a teacher who is not teaching.
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GILBERT K. CHESTERTON Courage is almost a contradiction in terms: it means a strong desire to live taking the form of re...
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON Tradition does not mean that the living are dead, but that the dead are living.
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON Fable is more historical than fact, because fact tells us about one man and fable tells us about a m...
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON We are justified in enforcing good morals, for they belong to all mankind; but we are not justified ...
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON Some men never feel small, but these are the few men who are.
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON All architecture is great architecture after sunset; perhaps architecture is really a nocturnal art,...
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON The mere brute pleasure of reading the sort of pleasure a cow must have in grazing.
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GILBERT K. CHESTERTON What people call impartiality may simply mean indifference, and what people call partiality may simp...
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON A puritan is a person who pours righteous indignation into the wrong things.
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered.
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GILBERT K. CHESTERTON The perplexity of life arises from there being too many interesting things in it for us to be intere...
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GILBERT K. CHESTERTON I regard golf as an expensive way of playing marbles.
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GILBERT K. CHESTERTON Science in the modern world has many uses; its chief use, however, is to provide long words to cover...
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON Once I planned to write a book of poems entirely about the things in my pocket. But I found it would...
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON Men feel that cruelty to the poor is a kind of cruelty to animals. They never feel that it is an inj...
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON We make our friends; we make our enemies; but God makes our next door neighbour.
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON A new philosophy generally means in practice the praise of some old vice.
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON In matters of truth the fact that you don't want to publish something is, nine times out of ten,...
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON The true object of all human life is play. Earth is a task garden; heaven is a playground.
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON Happy is he who still loves something he loved in the nursery: He has not been broken in two by time...
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON The fatal metaphor of progress, which means leaving things behind us, has utterly obscured the real ...
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy ...
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON The greenhorn is the ultimate victor in everything; it is he that gets the most out of life.
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GILBERT K. CHESTERTON No man who worships education has got the best out of education... Without a gentle contempt for edu...
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON Music with dinner is an insult both to the cook and the violinist.
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON The simplification of anything is always sensational.
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON And they that rule in England, in stately conclaves met, alas, alas for England they have no graves ...
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON I've searched all the parks in all the cities and found no statues of committees.
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON When we were children we were grateful to those who filled our stockings at Christmas time. Why are ...
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more ...
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON All conservatism is based upon the idea that if you leave things alone you leave them as they are. B...
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON New roads; new ruts.
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON Love means to love that which is unlovable; or it is no virtue at all.
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity.
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON Without education we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously.
GILBERT KEITH CHESTERTON The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children's games from the...
GILBERT KEITH CHESTERTON It is the test of a good religion whether you can make a joke about it.
GILBERT KEITH CHESTERTON The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.
GILBERT KEITH CHESTERTON Do not free a camel of the burden of his hump: you may be freeing him from being a camel.
GILBERT KEITH CHESTERTON Don't ever take a fence down until you know the reason it was put up.
GILBERT KEITH CHESTERTON The object of opening the mind as of opening the mouth is to close it again on something solid.
GILBERT KEITH CHESTERTON It is very good for a man to talk about what he does not understand; as long as he understands that ...
GILBERT KEITH CHESTERTON Dogma does not mean the absence of thought, but the end of thought.
GILBERT KEITH CHESTERTON Very few people in the world would care to listen to the real defense of their own characters. The r...
GILBERT KEITH CHESTERTON Music with dinner is an insult both to the cook and the violinist.
GILBERT KEITH CHESTERTON "My country, right or wrong," is a thing that no patriot would think of saying except in a desperat...
GILBERT KEITH CHESTERTON Journalism consists largely in saying 'Lord Jones died' to people who never knew Lord Jones was aliv...
GILBERT KEITH CHESTERTON Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another.
GILBERT KEITH CHESTERTON No man who worships education has got the best out of education... Without a gentle contempt for edu...
GILBERT KEITH CHESTERTON To be in the weakest camp is to be in the strongest school.
GILBERT KEITH CHESTERTON At the bottom of all the tributes paid to democracy is the little man, walking into the little boot...
GILBERT KEITH CHESTERTON You can never have a revolution in order to establish a democracy. You must have a democracy in or...
GILBERT KEITH CHESTERTON I realized that ritual will always mean throwing away something; Destroying our corn or wine upon t...
GILBERT KEITH CHESTERTON The only words that ever satisfied me as describing Nature are the terms used in fairy books, charm...
GILBERT KEITH CHESTERTON When fishes flew and forests walked And figs grew upon thorn, Some moment when the moon was bl...
GILBERT KEITH CHESTERTON The world will never starve for want of wonders; but only for want of wonder.
GILBERT KEITH CHESTERTON The function of the imagination is not to make strange things settled, so much as to make settled...
G. K. CHESTERTON You could compile the worst book in the world entirely out of selected passages from the best write...
G K CHESTERTON Virtue is not the absense of vices or the avoidance of moral dangers; virtue is a vivid and separa...
G. K. CHESTERTON Journalism is popular, but it is popular mainly as fiction. Life is one world, and life seen in the ...
G. K. CHESTERTON Marriage is an adventure, like going to war.
G. K. CHESTERTON Variability is one of the virtues of a woman. It avoids the crude requirement of polygamy. So long a...
G. K. CHESTERTON The honest poor can sometimes forget poverty. The honest rich can never forget it.
G. K. CHESTERTON Half a truth is better than no politics.
G. K. CHESTERTON A new philosophy generally means in practice the praise of some old vice.
G. K. CHESTERTON The most dangerous criminal now is the entirely lawless modern philosopher. Compared to him, burglar...
G. K. CHESTERTON We are justified in enforcing good morals, for they belong to all mankind; but we are not justified ...
G. K. CHESTERTON Man knows that there are in the soul tints more bewildering, more numberless, and more nameless that...
G. K. CHESTERTON All slang is metaphor, and all metaphor is poetry.
G. K. CHESTERTON There is nothing the matter with Americans except their ideals. The real American is all right; it i...
G. K. CHESTERTON I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and do...
G. K. CHESTERTON Happiness is a mystery, like religion, and should never be rationalized.
G. K. CHESTERTON One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak.
G. K. CHESTERTON Do not free the camel of the burden of his hump; you may be freeing him from being a camel.
G. K. CHESTERTON I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that falls...
G. K. CHESTERTON Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity.
G. K. CHESTERTON People generally quarrel because they cannot argue.
G. K. CHESTERTON Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a re...
G. K. CHESTERTON Courage is getting away from death by continually coming within an inch of it.
G. K. CHESTERTON Brave men are all vertebrates; they have their softness on the surface and their toughness in the mi...
G. K. CHESTERTON In matters of truth the fact that you don't want to publish something is, nine times out of ten, a p...
G. K. CHESTERTON The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untr...
G. K. CHESTERTON Boyhood is a most complex and incomprehensible thing. Even when one has been through it, one does no...
G. K. CHESTERTON If the barricades went up in our streets and the poor became masters, I think the priests would esca...
G. K. CHESTERTON Youth is the period in which a man can be hopeless. The end of every episode is the end of the world...
G. K. CHESTERTON The artistic temperament is a disease that affects amateurs. Artists of a large and wholesome vitali...
G. K. CHESTERTON Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere.
G. K. CHESTERTON Art consists of limitation. The most beautiful part of every picture is the frame.
G. K. CHESTERTON The dignity of the artist lies in his duty of keeping awake the sense of wonder in the world. In thi...
G. K. CHESTERTON Education is the period during which you are being instructed by somebody you do not know, about som...
G. K. CHESTERTON Dogma is actually the only thing that cannot be separated from education. It IS education. A teacher...
G. K. CHESTERTON The family is the test of freedom; because the family is the only thing that the free man makes for ...
G. K. CHESTERTON The present condition of fame is merely fashion.
G. K. CHESTERTON When you have really exhausted an experience you always reverence and love it. The two things that n...
G. K. CHESTERTON Experience which was once claimed by the aged is now claimed exclusively by the young.
G. K. CHESTERTON There is a great man who makes every man feel small. But the real great man is the man who makes eve...
G. K. CHESTERTON The old idea that the joke was not good enough for the company has been superseded by the new aristo...
G. K. CHESTERTON Man is an exception, whatever else he is. If he is not the image of God, then he is a disease of the...
G. K. CHESTERTON To love means loving the unlovable. To forgive means pardoning the unpardonable. Faith means believi...
G. K. CHESTERTON Fable is more historical than fact, because fact tells us about one man and fable tells us about a m...
G. K. CHESTERTON Evil comes at leisure like the disease. Good comes in a hurry like the doctor.
G. K. CHESTERTON Gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.
G. K. CHESTERTON The timidity of the child or the savage is entirely reasonable; they are alarmed at this world, beca...
G. K. CHESTERTON One may understand the Cosmos, but never the ego; the self is more distant than any star.
G. K. CHESTERTON The world will never starve for want of wonders, but for want of wonder.
G. K. CHESTERTON Our civilization has decided that determining the guilt or innocence of men is a thing too important...
G. K. CHESTERTON What we call personality (...) has become the most impersonal thing in the world. Its pale and featu...
G. K. CHESTERTON The aim of life is appreciation; there is no sense in not appreciating things; and there is no sense...
G. K. CHESTERTON Ritual will always mean throwing away something: destroying our corn or wine upon the altar of our g...
G. K. CHESTERTON The worst of work nowadays is what happens to people when they cease to work.
G. K. CHESTERTON A stiff apology is a second insult. The injured party does not want to be compensated because he has...
G. K. CHESTERTON Facts as facts do not always create a spirit of reality, because reality is a spirit.
G. K. CHESTERTON Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more ...
G. K. CHESTERTON The vulgar man is always the most distinguished, for the very desire to be distinguished is vulgar.
G. K. CHESTERTON It isn't that they can't see the solution. It is that they can't see the problem.
G. K. CHESTERTON If I had only one sermon to preach it would be a sermon against pride.
G. K. CHESTERTON O God of earth and altar,
Bow down and hear our cry,
Our earthly rulers falter,
Our peop...
G. K. CHESTERTON We call a man a bigot or a slave of dogma because he is a thinker who has thought thoroughly and to ...
G. K. CHESTERTON