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A Great City Is The Place To Escape The True Drama Of Provincial Life, And Find Solace In Fantasy.
-Gilbert K. Chesterton
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A Great City Is

Gilbert K. Chesterton
...
A Great City Is The Place To Escape The True Drama Of Provincial Life, And Find Solace In Fantasy.

Understanding the Quote: "a great city is the place to escape the true drama of..."

This quote by Gilbert K. Chesterton reflects deeply on the theme of drama. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Drama, Cities, Fantasy, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Gilbert K. Chesterton interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Gilbert K. Chesterton

Gilbert K. Chesterton is celebrated for insightful thoughts on drama and cities. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Drama
Cities
Fantasy
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When Some English Moralists Write About The Importance Of Having Character, They Appear To Mean Only The Importance Of Having A Dull Character.
Writing
Character
Mean
If You Spell A Word Wrong You Have Some Temptation To Think It Wrong.
Thinking
Temptation
Spells
The Great Intellectual Tradition That Comes Down To Us From The Past Was Never Interrupted Or Lost Through Such Trifles As The Sack Of Rome, The Triumph Of Attila, Or All The Barbarian Invasions Of The Dark Ages. It Was Lost After The Introduction Of Printing, The Discovery Of America, The Founding Of The Royal Society, And All The Enlightenment Of The Renaissance And The Modern World. It Was There, If Anywhere, That There Was Lost Or Impatiently Snapped The Long Thin Delicate Thread That Had Descended From Distant Antiquity; The Thread Of That Unusual Human Hobby: The Habit Of Thinking.
Dark
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Even The Moon Is Only Poetical Because There Is A Man In The Moon.
Moon
Men
Man In The Moon
Man Is At His Tallest When He Bows.
Faith
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Bows
The Worst Moment For An Atheist Is When He Feels A Profound Sense Of Gratitude And Has No One To Thank.
Gratitude
Atheist
Worst Moments
Most Americans Are Born Drunk, And Really Require A Little Wine Or Beer To Sober Them. They Have A Sort Of Permanent Intoxication From Within, A Sort Of Invisible Champagne. Americans Do Not Need To Drink To Inspire Them To Do Anything, Though They Do Sometimes, I Think, Need A Little For The Deeper And More Delicate Purpose Of Teaching Them How To Do Nothing.
Teaching
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There Is No Such Thing On Earth As An Uninteresting Subject; The Only Thing That Can Exist Is An Uninterested Person.
Inspirational
Earth
Artistic Temperament
Truths Turn Into Dogmas The Minute They Are Disputed.
Truth
Lying
Dogma
The First Fact About The Celebration Of A Birthday Is That It Is A Way Of Affirming Defiantly, And Even Flamboyantly, That It Is A Good Thing To Be Alive.
Alive
Way
Firsts
When You Have Really Exhausted An Experience You Always Reverence And Love It.
Love
Experience
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Mr. Mccabe Thinks That I Am Not Serious But Only Funny, Because Mr. Mccabe Thinks That Funny Is The Opposite Of Serious. Funny Is The Opposite Of Not Funny And Nothing Else.
Thinking
Opposites
Serious
One Sees Great Things From The Valley; Only Small Things From The Peak.
Nature
Adversity
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Atheism Is Too Theological.
Atheism
Theological
The Old Restriction Meant That Only The Orthodox Were Allowed To Discuss Religion. Modern Liberty Means That Nobody Is Allowed To Discuss It. Good Taste, The Last And Vilest Of Human Superstitions, Has Succeeded In Silencing Us Where All The Rest Have Failed.
Mean
Liberty
Superstitions
Madness Does Not Come By Breaking Out, But By Giving In; By Settling Down In Some Dirty, Little, Self-repeating Circle Of Ideas; By Being Tamed.
Dirty
Self
Circles
The Poor Complain That They Are Governed Badly. The Rich Complain That They Are Governed At All.
Complaining
Rich
Poor
So Far As A Man May Be Proud Of A Religion Rooted In Humility, I Am Very Proud Of My Religion; I Am Especially Proud Of Those Parts Of It That Are Most Commonly Called Superstition. I Am Proud Of Being Fettered By Antiquated Dogmas And Enslaved By Dead Creeds (as My Journalistic Friends Repeat With So Much Pertinacity), For I Know Very Well That It Is The Heretical Creeds That Are Dead, And That It Is Only The Reasonable Dogma That Lives Long Enough To Be Called Antiquated.
Humility
Men
Long
Precisely Because Our Political Speeches Are Meant To Be Reported, They Are Not Worth Reporting. Precisely Because They Are Carefully Designed To Be Read, Nobody Reads Them.
Political
Speech
Political Speeches
When People Talk As If The Crusades Were Nothing More Than An Aggressive Raid Against Islam, They Seem To Forget In The Strangest Way That Islam Itself Was Only An Aggressive Raid Against The Old And Ordered Civilization In These Parts. I Do Not Say It In Mere Hostility To The Religion Of Mahomet; I Am Fully Conscious Of Many Values And Virtues In It; But Certainly It Was Islam That Was The Invasion And Christendom That Was The Thing Invaded.
Civilization
People
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Fable Is More Historical Than Fact, Because Fact Tells Us About One Man And Fable Tells Us About A Million Men.
Men
Historical
Literature
One Of The Deepest And Strangest Of All Human Moods Is The Mood Which Will Suddenly Strike Us Perhaps In A Garden At Night, Or Deep In Sloping Meadows, The Feeling That Every Flower And Leaf Has Just Uttered Something Stupendously Direct And Important, And That We Have By A Prodigy Of Imbecility Not Heard Or Understood It. There Is A Certain Poetic Value, And That A Genuine One, In This Sense Of Having Missed The Full Meaning Of Things. There Is Beauty, Not Only In Wisdom, But In This Dazed And Dramatic Ignorance.
Flower
Ignorance
Knowledge
The Bible Tells Us To Love Our Neighbors, And Also To Love Our Enemies; Probably Because They Are Generally The Same People.
Love
Funny
Life
The Modern World Has Far Too Little Understanding Of The Art Of Keeping Young. Its Notion Of Progress Has Been To Pile One Thing On Top Of Another, Without Caring If Each Thing Was Crushed In Turn. People Forgot That The Human Soul Can Enjoy A Thing Most When There Is Time To Think About It And Be Thankful For It. And By Crowding Things Together They Lost The Sense Of Surprise; And Surprise Is The Secret Of Joy.
Art
Caring
Thinking
If A Rhinoceros Were To Enter This Restaurant Now, There Is No Denying He Would Have Great Power Here. But I Should Be The First To Rise And Assure Him That He Had No Authority Whatever.
Leadership
Firsts
Authority
The Things We See Every Day Are The Things We Never See At All.
Poetry Is Sane Because It Floats Easily In An Infinite Sea; Reason Seeks To Cross The Infinite Sea And So Make It Finite. The Result Is Mental Exhaustion. To Accept Everything Is An Exercise, To Understand Everything A Strain.
Exercise
Sea
Infinite
When A Man Ceases To Believe In God, He Does Not Believe In Nothing. He Believes In Everything.
Atheist
Believe
Men
If You Know What A Man's Doing, Get In Front Of Him; But If You Want To Guess What He's Doing Keep Behind Him.
Men
Want
Behinds
You Have Not Wasted Your Time; You Have Helped To Save The World. We Are Not Buffoons, But Very Desperate Men At War With A Vast Conspiracy.
War
Men
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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.
Adventure
Law
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There Is Also An Insulting Speech About 'one Grey Day Just Like Another'. You Might As Well Talk About One Green Tree Like Another.
Weather
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He Is A [sane] Man Who Can Have Tragedy In His Heart And Comedy In His Head.
Encouragement
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The Full Potentialities Of Human Fury Cannot Be Reached Until A Friend Of Both Parties Tactfully Intervenes.
Party
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There Is Nothing Harder To Learn Than Painting And Nothing Which Most People Take Less Trouble About Learning.
Education
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The Only Words That Ever Satisfied Me As Describing Nature Are The Terms Used In Fairy Books, Charm, Spell, Enchantment; They Express The Arbitrariness Of The Fact And Its Mystery.
Nature
Book
Enchantment
The Most Valuable Book We Can Read, About Countries We Have Visited, Is That Which Recalls To Us Something That We Did Notice, But Did Not Notice That We Noticed.
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Book
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If The Devil Tells You Something Is Too Fearful To Look At, Look At It. If He Says Something Is Too Terrible To Hear, Hear It. If You Think Some Truth Unbearable, Bear It.
Thinking
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Ivory May Not Be So White As Snow, But The Whole Arctic Continent Does Not Make Ivory Black.
Ivory
White
Snow
I Am Not Absentminded. It Is The Presence Of Mind That Makes Me Unaware Of Everything Else.
Funny
Life
Presence Of Mind
Why Should Anything Go Right; Even Observation And Deduction? Why Should Not Good Logic Be As Misleading As Bad Logic? They Are Both Movements In The Brain Of A Bewildered Ape?
Brain
Anything Goes
Movement
I've Been To Every Park In Every City And Not Seen A Statue To A Committee.
Cities
Parks
Committees
Women Have A Thirst For Order And Beauty As For Something Physical; There Is A Strange Female Power Of Hating Ugliness And Waste As Good Men Can Only Hate Sin And Bad Men Virtue.
Love
Hate
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It Has Always Been One Of My Unclerical Sermons To Myself, That That Remark Which Peter Made On Seeing The Vision Of A Single Hour, Ought To Be Made By Us All, In Contemplating Every Panoramic Change In The Long Vision We Call Life... "it Is Good For Us To Be Here - It Is Good For Us To Be Here", Repeating Itself Eternally.
Faith
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...a Figure Of Speech Can Often Get Into A Crack Too Small For A Definition.
Cracks
Speech
Definitions
The Grinding Power Of The Plain Words Of The Gospel Story Is Like The Power Of Mill-stones, And Those Who Can Read Them Simply Enough Will Feel As If Rocks Had Been Rolled Upon Them.
Rocks
Stories
Stones
Playing As Children Means Playing Is The Most Serious Thing In The World.
Baby
Children
Mean
As For The General View That The Church Was Discredited By The War—they Might As Well Say That The Ark Was Discredited By The Flood. When The World Goes Wrong, It Proves Rather That The Church Is Right. The Church Is Justified, Not Because Her Children Do Not Sin, But Because They Do.
Children
War
Views
People In High Life Are Hardened To The Wants And Distresses Of Mankind As Surgeons Are To Their Bodily Pains.
Pain
People
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It Is Shorter To State The Things Forbidden Than The Things Permitted; Precisely Because Most Things Are Permitted And Only A Few Things Forbidden.
Morality
States
Forbidden
Facts By Themselves Can Often Feed The Flame Of Madness, Because Sanity Is A Spirit.
Flames
Facts
Spirit
I Have No Right To Think For Myself. I Have No Right To Think At All.
Thinking
[no Society Can Survive The Socialist] Fallacy That There Is An Absolutely Unlimited Number Of Inspired Officials And An Absolutely Unlimited Amount Of Money To Pay Them.
Numbers
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A Beetle May Or May Not Be Inferior To A Man - The Matter Awaits Demonstration; But If He Were Inferior By Ten Thousand Fathoms, The Fact Remains That There Is Probably A Beetle View Of Things Of Which A Man Is Entirely Ignorant. If He Wishes To Conceive That Point Of View, He Will Scarcely Reach It By Persistently Revelling In The Fact That He Is Not A Beetle.
Men
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Ignorant
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...it Is Things Going Right," He Cried, "that Is Poetical! Our Digestions, For Instance, Going Sacredly And Silently Right, That Is The Foundation Of All Poetry...the Most Poetical Thing In The World Is Not Being Sick.
Sea
Sick
Foundation
Education Is Simply The Soul Of A Society As It Passes From One Generation To Another.
Inspirational
Inspiring
Graduation
It Seems To Me,' Said The Other, 'that You Are Simply Seeking A Pretext To Insult The Marquis.' By George!' Said Syme Facing Round And Looking At Him, 'what A Clever Chap You Are!
Clever
Insult
Said
If We Want To Give Poor People Soap We Must Set Out Deliberately To Give Them Luxuries. If We Will Not Make Them Rich Enough To Be Clean, Then Empathically We Must Do What We Did With The Saints. We Must Reverence Them For Being Dirty.
Dirty
Luxury
People
Why Do All The Clerks And Navvies In The Railway Trains Look So Sad And Tired, So Very Sad And Tired? I Will Tell You. It Is Because They Know That The Train Is Going Right. It Is Because They Know That Whatever Place They Have Taken A Ticket For That Place They Will Reach. It Is Because After They Have Passed Sloane Square They Know That The Next Station Must Be Victoria, And Nothing But Victoria. Oh, Their Wild Rapture! Oh, Their Eyes Like Stars And Their Souls Again In Eden, If The Next Station Were Unaccountably Baker Street!
Stars
Taken
Tired
I Like The Cyclostyle Ink; It Is So Inky. I Do Not Think There Is Anyone Who Takes Quite Such A Fierce Pleasure In Things Being Themselves As I Do. The Startling Wetness Of Water Excites And Intoxicates Me: The Fieriness Of Fire, The Steeliness Of Steel, The Unutterable Muddiness Of Mud. It Is Just The Same With People.... When We Call A Man "manly" Or A Woman "womanly" We Touch The Deepest Philosophy.
Philosophy
Men
Thinking
It Is Assumed That The Skeptic Has No Bias; Whereas He Has A Very Obvious Bias In Favour Of Skepticism.
Favour
Obvious
Skepticism
A Teacher Who Is Not Dogmatic Is Simply A Teacher Who Is Not Teaching.
Teacher
Retirement
Teaching
The Wise Old Fairy Tales Never Were So Silly As To Say That The Prince And The Princess Lived Peacefully Ever Afterwards. The Fairy Tales Said That The Prince And Princess Lived Happily Ever Afterwards; And So They Did. They Lived Happily, Although It Is Very Likely That From Time To Time They Threw The Furniture At Each Other.
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He Said He Didn't Very Well Understand How George Was Going To Sleep Any More Than He Did Now, Seeing That There Were Only Twenty-four Hours In Each Day.
Funny
Time
Sleep
There Are Two Kinds Of Rebellion. The First Is One In Which The Slave Demands Something That The Tyrant Has Got. The Second Is One In Which He Demands Something That The Tyrant Has Not Got.
Tyrants
Two
Demand
The Most Incredible Thing About Miracles Is That They Happen.
Miracle
Incredibles
Happens
There Is More To Life Than Increasing Its Speed. Gandhi Gave My Life To Become The Person I Am Right Now. Was It Worth It? Richard Bach Life Exists For The Love Of Music Or Beautiful Things.
Beautiful
Music Love
Speed
It Is True That I Am Of An Older Fashion; Much That I Love Has Been Destroyed Or Sent Into Exile.
Fashion
Culture
Exile
Tradition Does Not Mean A Dead Town; It Does Not Mean That The Living Are Dead But That The Dead Are Alive. It Means That It Still Matters What Penn Did Two Hundred Years Ago Or What Franklin Did A Hundred Years Ago; I Never Could Feel In New York That It Mattered What Anybody Did An Hour Ago.
New York
Mean
Years
Americans Are A Very Backward People, With All The Real Virtues Of A Backward People; The Patriarchal Simplicity And Human Dignity Of A Democracy, And A Respect For Labor Uncorrupted By Cynicism.
Respect
Real
People
Education Is Implication. It Is Not The Things You Say Which Children Respect; When You Say Things, They Very Commonly Laugh And Do The Opposite. It Is The Things You Assume Which Really Sink Into Them. It Is The Things You Forget Even To Teach That They Learn.
Children
Opposites
Laughing
A Naked Moon Stood In A Naked Sky.
Moon
Sky
Naked
But We Are The People Of England; And We Have Not Spoken Yet. Smile At Us, Pay Us, Pass Us. But Do Not Quite Forget.
People
Pay
England
Physical Science Is Like Simple Addition: It Is Either Infallible Or It Is False.
Simple
Infallible
Physical Science
I Have Investigated The Dust-heaps Of Humanity, And Found A Treasure In All Of Them. I Have Found That Humanity Is Not Incidentally Engaged, But Eternally And Systematically Engaged, In Throwing Gold Into The Gutter And Diamonds Into The Sea.
Dust
Sea
Humanity
It Is Not Greedy To Enjoy A Good Dinner, Any More Than It Is To Enjoy A Good Concert. But I Do Think There Is Something Greedy About Trying To Enjoy The Dinner And The Concert At The Same Time.
Thinking
Greed
Trying
When You Have Really Exhausted An Experience You Always Reverence And Love It. The Two Things That Nearly All Of Us Have Thoroughly And Really Been Through Are Childhood And Youth. And Though We Would Not Have Them Back Again On Any Account, We Feel That They Are Both Beautiful, Because We Have Drunk Them Dry.
Love
Beautiful
Two
[there Is] One Distinctly Human Thing - The Story. There Can Be As Good Science About A Turnip As About A Man. ... [or Philosophy, Or Theology] ...there Can Be, Without Any Question At All, As Good Higher Mathematics About A Turnip As About A Man. But I Do Not Think, Though I Speak In A Manner Somewhat Tentative, That There Could Be As Good A Novel Written About A Turnip As A Man.
Philosophy
Science
Men
Obviously If Any Actions, Even A Lunatic's, Can Be Causeless, Determinism Is Done For. If The Chain Of Causation Can Be Broken For A Madman, It Can Be Broken For A Man.
Men
Broken
Done
There Are No Wise Few. Every Aristocracy That Has Ever Existed Has Behaved, In All Essential Points, Exactly Like A Small Mob.
Wise
Essentials
Aristocracy
The Whole Object Of Travel Is Not To Set Foot On Foreign Land; It Is At Last To Set Foot On One's Own Country As A Foreign Land.
Country
Travel
Adventure
I Despise Birth-control First Because It Is ... An Entirely Meaningless Word; And Is Used So As To Curry Favour Even With Those Who Would First Recoil From Its Real Meaning. The Proceeding These Quack Doctors Recommend Does Not Control Any Birth.
Real
Science
Doctors
The Men Of The East May Spell The Stars, And Times And Triumphs Mark, But The Men Signed Of The Cross Of Christ Go Gaily In The Dark.
Stars
Dark
Men
The Whole Pleasure Of Marriage Is That It Is A Perpetual Crisis.
Love
Pleasure
Crisis
Anyone Who Is Not An Anarchist Agrees With Having A Policeman At The Corner Of The Street; But The Danger At Present Is That Of Finding The Policeman Half-way Down The Chimney Or Even Under The Bed.
Bed
Half
Way
The Obvious Effect Of Frivolous Divorce Will Be Frivolous Marriage. If People Can Be Separated For No Reason They Will Feel It All The Easier To Be United For No Reason.
Divorce
People
Reason
The Evolutionists Seem To Know Everything About The Missing Link Except The Fact That It Is Missing.
Missing
Links
Facts
At Any Innocent Tea-table We May Easily Hear A Man Say, "life Is Not Worth Living." We Regard It As We Regard The Statement That It Is A Fine Day; Nobody Thinks That It Can Possibly Have Any Serious Effect On The Man Or On The World. And Yet If That Utterance Were Really Believed, The World Would Stand On Its Head.
Men
Thinking
Tea
All Things Are From God; And Above All, Reason And Imagination And The Great Gifts Of The Mind. They Are Good In Themselves; And We Must Not Altogether Forget Their Origin Even In Their Perversion.
Imagination
Mind
Forget
Free Verse Is Like Free Love; It Is A Contradiction In Terms.
Free Love
Contradiction
Term
Reason Is Itself A Matter Of Faith. It Is An Act Of Faith To Assert That Our Thoughts Have Any Relation To Reality At All.
Art
Philosophy
Reality
The Criminal Is The Creative Artist; The Detective Only The Critic.
Artist
Creative
Criticism
The Oligarchic Character Of The Modern English Commonwealth Does Not Rest, Like Many Oligarchies, On The Cruelty Of The Rich To The Poor. It Does Not Even Rest On The Kindness Of The Rich To The Poor. It Rests On The Perennial And Unfailing Kindness Of The Poor To The Rich.
Kindness
Character
Doe
From The Standpoint Of Any Sane Person, The Present Problem Of Capitalist Concentration Is Not Only A Question Of Law, But Of Criminal Law, Not To Mention Criminal Lunacy.
Law
Criminals
Problem
They Say Travel Broadens The Mind, But You Must Have The Mind.
Travel
Mind
Catholic Doctrine And Discipline May Be Walls; But They Are The Walls Of A Playground.
Wall
Discipline
Catholic
Every Man Speaks Of Public Opinion, And Means By Public Opinion, Public Opinion Minus His Opinion.
Mean
Men
Public Opinion
Every Man Is Important If He Loses His Life;and Every Man Is Funny If He Loses His Hat And Has To Run After It.
Running
Men
Important
Journalism Only Tells Us What Men Are Doing; It Is Fiction That Tells Us What They Are Thinking, And Still More What They Are Feeling. If A New Scientific Theory Finds The Soul Of A Man In His Dreams, At Least It Ought Not To Leave Out His Day-dreams. And All Fiction Is Only A Diary Of Day-dreams Instead Of Days. And This Profound Preoccupation Of Men's Minds With Certain Things Always Eventually Has An Effect Even On The External Expression Of The Age.
Dream
Men
Thinking
You Can't Have The Family Farm Without The Family.
Economic
Family Farms
Farms
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.
Humor
Evil
Political
Men In England Are Ruled, At This Minute By The Clock, By Brutes Who Refuse Them Bread, By Liars Who Refuse Them News, And By Fools Who Cannot Govern, And Therefore Wish To Enslave.
Liars
Men
News
We Have Passed The Age Of The Demagogue, The Man Who Has Little To Say And Says It Loud. We Have Come To The Age Of The Mystagogue Or Don, The Man Who Has Nothing To Say, But Says It Softly And Impressively In An Indistinct Whisper.
Men
Age
Littles
The Determining Bulk Of Scotch People Had Heard Of Golf Ever Since They Had Heard Of God And Often Considered The Two As Of Equal Importance.
Golf
Scotch
Two
There Are No Wise Few; For In All Men Rages The Folly Of The Fall. Take Your Strongest, Happiest, Handsomest, Best Born, Best Bred, Best Instructed Men On Earth And Give Them Special Power For Half An Hour And Because They Are Men They Will Begin To [perform] Badly.
Wise
Fall
Men
In All Legends Men Have Thought Of Women As Sublime Separately But Horrible In A Herd.
Men
Sublime
Legends
It Is Easy To Be Heavy: Hard To Be Light.
Happiness
Light
Easy
Unless A Man Starts Afresh About Things, He Will Certainly Do Nothing Effective. Unless A Man Starts On The Strange Assumption That He Has Never Existed Before, It Is Quite Certain That He Will Never Exist Afterwards.
Men
Strange
Assumption
As Regards Moral Courage, Then, It Is Not So Much That The Public Schools Support It Feebly, As That They Suppress It Firmly.
School
Support
Moral
Only Friendliness Produces Friendship. And We Must Look Far Deeper Into The Soul Of Man For The Thing That Produces Friendliness.
Friendship
Men
Soul
The Primary Paradox Of Christianity Is That The Ordinary Condition Of Man Is Not His Sane Or Sensible Condition; That The Normal Itself Is An Abnormality.
Men
Ordinary
Normal
When We Reverence Anything In The Mature, It Is Their Virtues Or Their Wisdom, And This Is An Easy Matter. But We Reverence The Faults And Follies Of Children. We Should Probably Come Considerably Nearer To The True Conception Of Things If We Treated All Grown-up Persons, Of All Titles And Types, With Precisely That Dark Affection And Dazed Respect With Which We Treat The Infantile Limitations.
Children
Dark
Matter
We Do Not Admire, We Hardly Excuse, The Fanatic Who Wrecks This World For Love Of The Other. But What Are We To Say Of The Fanatic Who Wrecks This World Out Of Hatred Of The Other? He Sacrifices The Very Existence Of Humanity To The Non-existence Of God. He Offers His Victims Not To The Altar, But Merely To Assert The Idleness Of The Altar And The Emptiness Of The Throne. He Is Ready To Ruin Even That Primary Ethic By Which All Things Live, For His Strange And Eternal Vengeance Upon Some One Who Never Lived At All.
Sacrifice
Hatred
Humanity
A Man Making The Confession Of Any Creed Worth Ten Minutes' Intelligent Talk, Is Always A Man Who Gains Something And Gives Up Something. So Long As He Does Both He Can Create: For He Is Making An Outline And A Shape.
Giving Up
Wine
Intelligent
It Is The Root Of All Religion That A Man Knows That He Is Nothing In Order To Thank God That He Is Something.
Men
Order
Roots
Women Are The Only Realists; Their Whole Object In Life Is To Pit Their Realism Against The Extravagant, Excessive, And Occasionally Drunken Idealism Of Men.
Love
Men
Pits
We All Know That The 'divine Glory Of The Ego' Is Socially A Great Nuisance; We All Do Actually Value Our Friends For Modesty, Freshness, And Simplicity Of Heart. Whatever May Be The Reason, We All Do Warmly Respect Humility - In Other People.
Heart
Humility
People
Bowing Down In Blind Credulity, As Is My Custom, Before Mere Authority And The Tradition Of The Elders, Superstitiously Swallowing A Story I Could Not Test At The Time By Experiment Or Private Judgment, I Am Firmly Of The Opinion That I Was Born On The 29th Of May, 1874, On Campden Hill, Kensington; And Baptised According To The Formularies Of The Church Of England In The Little Church Of St. George Opposite The Large Waterworks Tower That Dominated That Ridge.
Book
Opposites
Church
The Decay Of Society Is Praised By Artists As The Decay Of A Corpse Is Praised By Worms.
Art
Decay
Literature
A Man Is Angry At A Libel Because It Is False, But At A Satire Because It Is True.
Men
Satire
Libel
I Said To Him, "shall I Tell You Where The Men Are Who Believe Most In Themselves? For I Can Tell You. I Know Of Men Who Believe In Themselves More Colossally Than Napoleon Or Caesar. I Know Where Flames The Fixed Star Of Certainty And Success. I Can Guide You To The Thrones Of The Super-men. The Men Who Really Believe In Themselves Are All In Lunatic Asylums.
Stars
Believe
Men
Life Is Serious All The Time, But Living Cannot Be. You May Have All The Solemnity You Wish In Your Neckties, But In Anything Important (such As Sex, Death, And Religion), You Must Have Mirth Or You Will Have Madness.
Sex
Wish
Important
And They That Rule In England, In Stately Conclaves Met, Alas, Alas For England They Have No Graves As Yet.
England
Graves
Mets
There Are No Words To Express The Abyss Between Isolation And Having One Ally.
Loneliness
Allies
Isolation
Making The Landlord And The Tenant The Same Person Has Certain Advantages, As That The Tenant Pays No Rent, While The Landlord Does A Little Work.
Doe
Littles
Pay
There Is Always In The Healthy Mind An Obscure Prompting That Religion Teaches Us Rather To Dig Than To Climb; That If We Could Once Understand The Common Clay Of Earth We Should Understand Everything. Similarly, We Have The Sentiment That If We Could Destroy Custom At A Blow And See The Stars As A Child Sees Them, We Should Need No Other Apocalypse. This Is The Great Truth Which Has Always Lain At The Back Of Baby-worship, And Which Will Support It To The End.
Baby
Stars
Children
Self-denial Is The Test And Definition Of Self-government.
Self
Government
Culture
It Seems A Pity That Psychology Has Destroyed All Our Knowledge Of Human Nature.
Psychology
Human Nature
Pity
Truth Is Sacred; And If You Tell The Truth Too Often Nobody Will Believe It.
Believe
Sacred
Morality
There Is Only One Thing That It Requires Real Courage To Say, And That Is A Truism.
Real
Truism
Real Courage
You Never Know The Best About Men Until You Know The Worst About Them.
Men
Worst
Knows
An Event Is Not Any More Intrinsically Intelligible Or Unintelligible Because Of The Pace At Which It Moves. For A Man Who Does Not Believe In A Miracle, A Slow Miracle Would Be Just As Incredible As A Swift One. The Greek Witch May Have Turned Sailors To Swine With A Stroke Of The Wand. But To See A Naval Gentleman Of Our Acquaintance Looking A Little More Like A Pig Every Day, Till He Ended With Four Trotters And A Curly Tail, Would Not Be Any More Soothing. It Might Be Rather More Creepy And Uncanny.
Believe
Moving
Men
Latter-day Scepticism Is Fond Of Calling Itself Progressive; But Scepticism Is Really Reactionary. Scepticism Goes Back; It Attempts To Unsettle What Has Already Been Settled. Instead Of Trying To Break Up New Fields With Its Plough, It Simply Tries To Break Up The Plough.
Trying
Calling
Fields
We Actually Love Ourselves More Than We Love Joy.
Joy
Angels Can Fly Because They Take Themselves Lightly.
Inspirational
Inspiring
Peace
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.
Encouragement
Waiting
Virtue
The Whole Order Of Things Is As Outrageous As Any Miracle Which Could Presume To Violate It.
Order
Miracle
Outrageous
If Men Will Not Be Governed By The Ten Commandments, They Shall Be Governed By The Ten Thousand Commandments
Men
Religion
Thousand
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.
Mean
Morality
Justified
There Are Many Ways To Fall Down, But There's Only One Way To Stand Up Straight.
Fall
Way
Falling Down
Man Knows That There Are In The Soul Tints More Bewildering, More Numberless, And More Nameless That The Colors Of An Autumn Forest....yet He Seriously Believes That These Things Can Every One Of Them , In All Their Tones And Semi-tones, In All Their Blends And Unions, Be Accurately Represented By An Arbitrary System Of Grunts And Squeals. He Believes That An Ordinary Civilized Stockbroker Can Really Produce Out Of His Own Inside Noises Which Denote All The Mysteries Of Memory And All The Agonies Of Desire.
Memories
Believe
Autumn
Well, If I Am Not Drunk, I Am Mad," Replied Syme With Perfect Calm; "but I Trust I Can Behave Like A Gentleman In Either Condition.
Drunk
Mad
Perfect
Spring Never Is Spring Unless It Comes Too Soon.
Nature
Spring
Environment
Life Is Indeed Terribly Complicated—to A Man Who Has Lost His Principles.
Men
Principles
Life Is
To Be Clever Enough To Get All That Money, One Must Be Stupid Enough To Want It.
Funny
Money
Clever
The True Object Of Human Life Is Play.
Play
Life Is
Human Life
The Fact Is That Purification And Austerity Are Even More Necessary For The Appreciation Of Life And Laughter Than For Anything Else. To Let No Bird Fly Past Unnoticed, To Spell The Stones And Weeds, To Have The Mind A Storehouse Of Sunset, Requires A Discipline In Pleasure And An Education In Gratitude.
Weed
Gratitude
Appreciation
It Is The Beginning Of All True Criticism Of Our Time To Realize That It Has Really Nothing To Say, At The Very Moment When It Has Invented So Tremendous A Trumpet For Saying It.
Power
Criticism
Speech
It Is Quite An Old-fashioned Fallacy To Suppose That Our Objection To Scepticism Is That It Removes The Discipline From Life. Our Objection To Scepticism Is That It Removes The Motive Power. Materialism Is Not A Thing Which Destroys Mere Restraint. Materialism Itself Is The Great Restraint.
Discipline
Materialism
Old Fashioned
A Man Does Not Know What He Is Saying Until He Knows What He Is Not Saying.
Knowledge
Men
Doe
Time And Again, The Faith Has To All Appearances Gone To The Dogs. But Each Time, It Was The Dog That Died.
Dog
Gone
Appearance
Classic Literature Is Still Something That Hangs In The Air Like A Song.
Song
Air
Literature
We Are Learning To Do A Great Many Clever Things. The Next Great Task Will Be To Learn Not To Do Them.
Clever
Tasks
Next
In A World Flagrant With The Failures Of Civilization, What Is There Particularly Immortal About Our Own?
Failure
Civilization
World
On The Third Day The Friends Of Christ Coming At Daybreak To The Place Found The Grave Empty And The Stone Rolled Away. In Varying Ways They Realized The New Wonder; But Even They Hardly Realized That The World Had Died In The Night. What They Were Looking At Was The First Day Of A New Creation, With A New Heaven And A New Earth; And In A Semblance Of The Gardener God Walked Again In The Garden, In The Cool Not Of The Evening But Of The Dawn.
Night
Garden
Heaven
When Men Cease To Believe In God, They Will Believe In Anything
Believe
Men
Believe In God
Meaninglessness Does Not Come From Being Weary Of Pain. Meaninglessness Comes From Being Weary Of Pleasure.
Pain
Doe
Pleasure
Were Patrick Henry To Return To Earth And Look Around On The Vast Economic Order Of The Day, He Might Revise His Observation And Merely Say ‘give Me Death’-the Alternative Being Manifestly Impossible Under Modern Conditions.
Order
Giving
Alternatives
Any One Of The Strange Laws We Suffer Is A Compromise Between A Fad And A Vested Interest.
Law
Suffering
Fads
We All Feel The Riddle Of The Earth Without Anyone To Point It Out. The Mystery Of Life Is The Plainest Part Of It. The Clouds And Curtains Of Darkness, The Confounding Vapors, These Are The Daily Weather Of This World.
Clouds
Weather
Darkness
To Hurry Through One's Leisure Is The Most Unbusiness-like Of Actions.
Progress
Leisure
Action
All Science, Even The Divine Science, Is A Sublime Detective Story. Only It Is Not Set To Detect Why A Man Is Dead; But The Darker Secret Of Why He Is Alive.
Men
Sublime
Secret
There Is No Such Thing As Success....that A Thing Is Successful Merely Means That It Is; A Millionaire Is Successful In Being A Millionaire And A Donkey In Being A Donkey.
Mean
Successful
Wealth
It Was The People Who Did Not Care Who Filled The World With Fire And Oppression. It Was The Hands Of The Indifferent That Lit The Faggots; It Was The Hands Of The Indifferent That Turned The Rack.
Fire
Hands
People
People Generally Quarrel Because They Cannot Argue.
Fear
People
Atheism
A Man Must Be Orthodox Upon Most Things, Or He Will Never Even Have Time To Preach His Own Heresy.
Time
Men
Orthodox
We Make Our Friends; We Make Our Enemies; But God Makes Our Next Door Neighbour.
Funny
Friendship
God
The Unconscious Democracy Of America Is A Very Fine Thing. It Is A True And Deep And Instinctive Assumption Of The Equality Of Citizens, Which Even Voting And Elections Have Not Destroyed.
America
Voting
Democracy
It Is Hard To Make Government Representative When It Is Also Remote.
Government
Hard
Representatives
The Sane Man Knows That He Has A Touch Of The Beast, A Touch Of The Devil, A Touch Of The Saint, A Touch Of The Citizen. Nay, The Really Sane Man Knows That He Has A Touch Of The Madman.
Men
Devil
Saint
Angels Can Fly Because They Take Themselves Lightly. Never Forget That The Devil Fell By Force Of Gravity. He Who Has The Faith Has The Fun.
Fun
Angel
Devil
Half A Truth Is Better Than No Politics.
Half
Politics
Truth Is
And Noah He Often Said To His Wife When He Sat Down To Dine, "i Don't Care Where The Water Goes If It Doesn't Get Into The Wine."
Wine
Water
Wife
How Much Happier You Would Be, How Much More Of You There Would Be, If The Hammer Of A Higher God Could Smash Your Small Cosmos.
Would Be
Hammers
Cosmos
The Great Ideals Of The Past Failed Not By Being Outlived (which Must Mean Over-lived), But By Not Being Lived Enough. Mankind Has Not Passed Through The Middle Ages. Rather Mankind Has Retreated From The Middle Ages In Reaction And Rout. The Christian Ideal Has Not Been Tried And Found Wanting. It Has Been Found Difficult And Left Untried.
Christian
Mean
Past
Students Of Popular Science... Are Always Insisting That Christianity And Buddhism Are Very Much Alike, Especially Buddhism. This Is Generally Believed, And I Believed It Myself Until I Read A Book Giving The Reasons For It.
Book
Buddhism
Giving
One Of The Chief Uses Of Religion Is That It Makes Us Remember Our Coming From Darkness, The Simple Fact That We Are Created.
Simple
Darkness
Facts
A Man Running After A Hat Is Not Half So Ridiculous As A Man Running After A Woman.
Running
Women
Half
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 Is Really Nothing But A Sort Of New Religion And An Uncommonly Nasty One. When People Talked About The Fall Of Man, They Knew They Were Talking About A Mystery, A Thing They Didn't Understand. Now They Talk About The Survival Of The Fittest: They Think They Do Understand It, Whereas They Have Not Merely No Notion, They Have An Elaborately False Notion Of What The Words Mean.
Philosophy
Fall
Mean
The Darwinian Movement Has Made No Difference To Mankind, Except That, Instead Of Talking Unphilosophically About Philosophy, They Now Talk Unscientifically About Science.
Philosophy
Science
Talking
I Came To The Conclusion That The Optimist Thought Everything Good Except The Pessimist, And That The Pessimist Thought Everything Bad, Except Himself.
Perspective
Pessimist
Optimist
Atheism Is Indeed The Most Daring Of All Dogmas . . . For It Is The Assertion Of A Universal Negative.
Atheist
Atheism
Negative
Honour Is A Luxury For Aristocrats, But It Is A Necessity For Hall-porters.
Luxury
Honor
Halls
Without Authority There Is No Liberty. Freedom Is Doomed To Destruction At Every Turn, Unless There Is A Recognized Right To Freedom. And If There Are Rights, There Is An Authority To Which We Appeal For Them.
Rights
Liberty
Authority
This Is The Perpetual And Pitiful Tragedy Of The Practical Man In Practical Affairs. He Always Begins With A Flourish Of Contempt For What He Calls Theorizing And What People Who Can Do It Call Thinking. He Will Not Wait For Logic-that Is, In The Most Exact Sense, He Will Not Listen To Reason. It Will Therefore Appear To Him An Idle And Ineffectual Proceeding To Say That There Is A Reason For His Present Failure. Nevertheless, It May Be Well To Say It, And To Try And Make It Clear Even To Him.
Wisdom
Men
Thinking
This Is The Age In Which Thin And Theoretic Minorities Can Cover And Conquer Unconscious And Untheoretic Majorities.
Progress
Age
Minorities
To Have A Right To Do A Thing Is Not At All The Same As To Be Right In Doing It.
Orthodoxy
Morality
Action
Stated Baldly, Charity Certainly Means One Of Two Things–pardoning Unpardonable Acts, Or Loving Unlovable People.
Mean
Two
People
We Do Not Want, As The Newspapers Say, A Church That Will Move With The World. We Want A Church That Will Move The World.
Christian
Moving
Church
"are You A Devil?" "i Am A Man," Answered Father Brown Gravely; "and Therefore Have All Devils In My Heart."
Father
Heart
Men
The Thing That Cannot Be Defined Is The First Thing; The Primary Fact.
Science
Technology
Firsts
There Are Two Ways Of Getting Home; And One Of Them Is To Stay There.
Inspiring
Travel
Home
It Is Because Artists Do Not Practise, Patrons Do Not Patronize, Crowds Do Not Assemble To Reverently Worship The Great Work Of Doing Nothing, That The World Has Lost Its Philosophy And Even Failed To Invent A New Religion.
Philosophy
Artist
World
To Be Born Into This Earth Is To Be Born Into Uncongenial Surroundings, Hence To Be Born Into A Romance.
Romance
Earth
Born
Just The Other Day In The Underground I Enjoyed The Pleasure Of Offering My Seat To Three Ladies.
Food
Offering
Three
Literature And Fiction Are Two Entirely Different Things. Literature Is A Luxury; Fiction Is A Necessity.
Two
Luxury
Different
The Prophet And The Quack Are Alike Admired For A Generation, And Admired For The Wrong Reasons.
Generations
Reason
Prophet
Marriage Is An Adventure, Like Going To War.
Cute
Marriage
Funny Love
Hell Is God's Great Compliment To The Reality Of Human Freedom And The Dignity Of Human Choice.
Reality
Choices
Dignity
Misers Get Up Early In The Morning; And Burglars, I Am Informed, Get Up The Night Before.
Morning
Night
Up Early
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