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Portrait of Gilbert K. Chesterton

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Writer And Christian Apologist

868 quotes in 2996 categories

Chesterton says that good prose should say exactly what it means, while good poetry hints at what it does not say. He treats tradition as a living link, not a dead town, keeping the past relevant. He also notes that criticism is often just words about words, questioning its usefulness.

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Gilbert K. Chesterton is a Writer and Christian apologist, best known for The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare.

Quick Facts About Gilbert K. Chesterton

Profession: Writer And Christian Apologist
Notable works: The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare
Known for: Wit, paradoxical style, and defense of tradition

About Gilbert K. Chesterton

Gilbert Keith Chesterton was an English writer known for his work as a Christian apologist. His sharp humor, fondness for paradox, and spirited defense of tradition established him as one of the commanding literary figures of the early twentieth century. Among his works is The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare.

Quotes by Gilbert K. Chesterton

Buddhism is not a creed, it is a doubt.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Buddhism

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The word good has many meanings...

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Funny

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Adventure is the champagne of life.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Adventure

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I am at one with my duality.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Duality

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Progress is the mother of all problems.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Growth

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Atheism is too theological.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Atheism

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Marriage is a sort of poetical see-saw.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Marriage

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Nothing is certain by uncertainty.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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I have no right to think for myself. I have no right to think at all.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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All slang is metaphor, and all metaphor is poetry.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Metaphor

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There is, therefore, about all complete conviction a kind of huge helplessness.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Conviction

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The Universe is the most extraordinary masterpiece ever constructed by nobody.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Atheism

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If you spell a word wrong you have some temptation to think it wrong.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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He can only get away from death by continually stepping within an inch of it.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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Marriage halves our griefs, doubles our joys, and quadruples our expenses

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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But they none of them create the psychological conditions in which I first saw, or desired to see, the flower.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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It is the first law of practical courage. To be in the weakest camp is to be in the strongest school.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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People decided that it was impossible to achieve any of the good of Socialism, but they comforted themselves by achieving all the…

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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Original sin is the only doctrine that's been empirically validated by 2,000 years of human history.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Doctrine

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The danger of loss of faith in God is not that one will believe in nothing, but rather that one will believe…

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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When belief in God becomes difficult, the tendency is to turn away from Him; but in heaven's name to what?

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Belief

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The Party System was founded on one national notion of fair play. It was the notion that folly and futility should be…

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Both sides

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If prosperity is regarded as the reward of virtue it will be regarded as the symptom of virtue.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Character

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The average businessman began to be agnostic, not so much because he did not know where he was, as because he wanted…

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Agnostic

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I would rather a boy learnt in the roughest school the courage to hit a politician, or gained in the hardest school…

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Boys

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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…

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Animal

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Why should ANYTHING go right; even observation and deduction? Why should not good logic be as misleading as bad logic? They are…

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Anything goes

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We must be clear about what we want to paint. This adds a further principle to our previous list of principles. We…

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Artist

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The long words are not the hard words, it is the short words that are hard. There is much more metaphysical subtlety…

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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Laughter has something in it common with the ancient words of faith and inspiration; it unfreezes pride and unwinds secrecy; it makes…

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Ancient

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The artistic temperament is a disease that affects amateurs. Artists of a large and wholesome vitality get rid of their art easily,…

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Art

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The great ideals of the past failed not by being outlived (which must mean over-lived), but by not being lived enough. Mankind…

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Age

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The vault above us is not deaf because the universe is an idiot; the silence is not the heartless silence of an…

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Angel

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Journalism only tells us what men are doing; it is fiction that tells us what they are thinking, and still more what…

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Age

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The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a…

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Backbone

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Dogma is actually the only thing that cannot be separated from education. It IS education. A teacher who is not dogmatic is…

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Creeds

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It is cold anarchy to say that all men are to meddle in all men'smarriages. It is cold anarchy to say that…

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Anarchy

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Sir Hiram Maxim is a genuine and typical example of the man of science, romantic, excitable, full of real but somewhat obvious…

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Concentration

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Busy editors cannot be expected to put on their posters, "Mr. Wilkinson Still Safe," or "Mr. Jones, of Worthing, Not Dead Yet."…

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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Gilbert K. Chesterton by topic

Men (205) Inspirational (80) World (62) People (60) Religion (57) Love (51) Life (49) Humans (41) Art (37) Faith (32) Thinking (31) Children (30)