A man is angry at a libel because it is false, but at a satire because it is true. Gilbert K. Chesterton More Quotes by Gilbert K. Chesterton More Quotes From Gilbert K. Chesterton That is the one eternal education: to be sure enough that something is true that you dare to tell it to a child. Gilbert K. Chesterton dare enough children Virtue is not the absence of vices or the avoidance of moral dangers; virtue is a vivid and separate thing, like pain or a particular smell. Gilbert K. Chesterton smell pain vices The supreme adventure is being born. There we do walk suddenly into a splendid and startling trap... When we step into the family, by the act of being born, we do step into a world which is incalculable, into a world which has its own strange laws, into a world which could do without us, into a world we have not made. In other words, when we step into the family we step into a fairy-tale. Gilbert K. Chesterton law steps adventure A detective story generally describes six living men discussing how it is that a man is dead. A modern philosophic story generally describes six dead men discussing how any man can possibly be alive. Gilbert K. Chesterton detectives alive men Hope is the power of being cheerful in circumstances which we know to be desperate. Gilbert K. Chesterton encouraging cheerful motivational Cruelty is, perhaps, the worst kid of sin. Intellectual cruelty is certainly the worst kind of cruelty. Gilbert K. Chesterton intellectual literature kids Tolerance is a virtue of people who don't believe in anything anymore. Gilbert K. Chesterton tolerance believe people There is at the back of every artist’s mind something like a pattern and a type of architecture. The original quality in any man of imagination is imagery. It is a thing like the landscape of his dreams; the sort of world he would like to make or in which he would like to wander, the strange flora and fauna, his own secret planet, the sort of thing he likes to think about. This general atmosphere, and pattern or a structure of growth, governs all his creations, however varied. Gilbert K. Chesterton dream men thinking Modern man is educated to understand foreign languages and misunderstand foreigners. Gilbert K. Chesterton modern language men It's not the world that's got so much worse but the news coverage that's got so much better. Gilbert K. Chesterton news media world When a woman puts up her fists to a man she is putting herself in the only posture in which he is not afraid of her. Gilbert K. Chesterton posture fists men The simple sense of wonder at the shapes of things, and at their exuberant independence of our intellectual standards and our trivial definitions, is the basis of spirituality. Gilbert K. Chesterton inspiration simple faith I represent the jolly mass of mankind. I am the happy and reckless Christian. Gilbert K. Chesterton reckless mass christian Wait and see whether the religion of the Servile State is not in every case what I say: the encouragement of small virtues supporting capitalism, the discouragement of the huge virtues that defy it. Gilbert K. Chesterton virtue encouragement waiting Employers will give time to eat, time to sleep; they are in terror of a time to think. Gilbert K. Chesterton sleep time thinking No man can be merry unless he is serious. Gilbert K. Chesterton merry serious men For good or evil, a line has been passed in our political history; and something that we have known all our lives is dead. I will take only one example of it: our politicians can no longer be caricatured. Gilbert K. Chesterton political humor evil The materialist is sure that history has been simply and solely a chain of causation, just as the [lunatic] is quite sure that he is simply and solely a chicken. Materialists and madmen never have doubts. Gilbert K. Chesterton chickens chains doubt In the modern conflict between the Smile and the Laugh, I am all in favor of laughing. The recent stage of culture and criticism might very well be summed up as the men who smile criticizing the men who laugh. Gilbert K. Chesterton criticism laughing men All true friendliness begins with fire and food and drink and the recognition of rain or frost. Gilbert K. Chesterton true-friend fire rain
