"Angels fly because they take themselves lightly."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on angels
10 fans of this quote   

"The golden age only comes to men when they have forgotten gold."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on gold
4 fans of this quote   

"Journalism consists largely in saying Lord James is dead to people who never knew Lord James was alive."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on journalism and journalists
4 fans of this quote   

"People accuse journalism of being too personal; but to me it has always seemed far too impersonal. It is charged with tearing away the veils from private life; but it seems to me to be always dropping diaphanous but blinding veils between men and men. The Yellow Press is abused for exposing facts which are private; I wish the Yellow Press did anything so valuable. It is exactly the decisive individual touches that it never gives; and a proof of this is that after one has met a man a million times in the newspapers it is always a complete shock and reversal to meet him in real life."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on journalism and journalists   

"Our civilization has decided that determining the guilt or innocence of men is a thing too important to be trusted to trained men. When it wants a library catalogued, or the solar system discovered, or any trifle of that kind, it uses up its specialists. But when it wishes anything done which is really serious, it collects twelve of the ordinary men standing round. The same thing was done, if I remember right, by the Founder of Christianity."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on juries
4 fans of this quote   

"We make our friends; we make our enemies; but God makes our next door neighbor."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on neighbors
3 fans of this quote   

"The Museum is not meant either for the wanderer to see by accident or for the pilgrim to see with awe. It is meant for the mere slave of a routine of self-education to stuff himself with every sort of incongruous intellectual food in one indigestible meal."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on museums and galleries   

"Your next-door neighbor is not a man; he is an environment. He is the barking of a dog; he is the noise of a piano; he is a dispute about a party wall; he is drains that are worse than yours, or roses that are better than yours."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on neighbors   

"My country wrong or right, is like saying my mother, drunk or sober."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on patriotism
4 fans of this quote   

"My country, right or wrong is a thing that no patriot would think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying My mother, drunk or sober."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on patriotism   

"If the barricades went up in our streets and the poor became masters, I think the priests would escape, I fear the gentlemen would; but I believe the gutters would simply be running with the blood of philanthropists."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on philanthropists   

"They have given us into the hand of new unhappy lords. Lords without anger and honor, who dare not carry their swords. They fight by shuffling papers; they have bright dead alien eyes; They look at our labor and laughter as a tired man looks at flies."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on oppression   

"A new philosophy generally means in practice the praise of some old vice."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on philosophers and philosophy   

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"Men always talk about the most important things to perfect strangers. In the perfect stranger we perceive man himself; the image of a God is not disguised by resemblances to an uncle or doubts of wisdom of a mustache."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on men   

"Marriage is an adventure, like going to war."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on marriage
5 fans of this quote   

"We are justified in enforcing good morals, for they belong to all mankind; but we are not justified in enforcing good manners, for good manners always mean our own manners."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on manners   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"One may understand the Cosmos, but never the ego; the self is more distant than any star."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on knowledge   

"When it comes to life the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on life
7 fans of this quote   

"A stiff apology is a second insult. The injured party does not want to be compensated because he has been wronged; he wants to be healed because he has been hurt."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on apologies
12 fans of this quote   

"Soldiers have many faults, but they have one redeeming merit; they are never worshippers of force. Soldiers more than any other men are taught severely and systematically that might is not right. The fact is obvious. The might is in the hundred men who obey. The right (or what is held to be right) is in the one man who commands them."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on army and navy   

"People generally quarrel because they cannot argue."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on argument
3 fans of this quote   

"Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on art   

"Love means to love that which is unlovable; or it is no virtue at all."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on love
18 fans of this quote   

"The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on love
37 fans of this quote   

"The true object of all human life is play. Earth is a task garden; heaven is a playground."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on plays   

"Education is the period during which you are being instructed by somebody you do not know, about something you do not want to know."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on education
7 fans of this quote   

"In politics the middle way is none at all."

Adams, John on politics
6 fans of this quote   

"Whether a revolutions succeeds or fails people of great hearts will always be sacrificed to it."

Heine, Heinrich on evolution   

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."

Jefferson, Thomas on evolution
6 fans of this quote   

"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."

Kennedy, John F. on evolution
6 fans of this quote   

"Most revolutionaries are potential Tories, because they imagine that everything can be put right by altering the shape of society; once that change is effected, as it sometimes is, they see no need for any other."

Orwell, George on evolution   

"The excessive increase of anything causes a reaction in the opposite direction."

Plato on evolution
3 fans of this quote   

"It is well, I die hard, but I am not afraid to go. "

Washington, George on famous last words
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"Dignity consists not in possessing honors, but in the consciousness that we deserve them."

Aristotle on dignity
16 fans of this quote   

"What it lies in our power to do, it lies in our power not to do."

Aristotle on discipline
30 fans of this quote   

"When people contend for their liberty they seldom get anything for their victory, but new masters."

Halifax, Edward F. on evolution   

"The successful revolutionary is a statesman, the unsuccessful one a criminal."

Fromm, Erich on evolution   

"Normal life cannot sustain revolutionary attitudes for long."

Djilas, Milovan on evolution
3 fans of this quote   

"As much as I converse with sages and heroes, they have very little of my love and admiration. I long for rural and domestic scene, for the warbling of birds and the prattling of my children"

Adams, John on children   

"Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide."

Adams, John on democracy
14 fans of this quote