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[consider] A Fence Or Gate Erected Across A Road] The More Modern Type Of Reformer Goes Gaily Up To It And Says, "i Don't See The Use Of This; Let Us Clear It Away." To Which The More Intelligent Type Of Reformer Will Do Well To Answer: "if You Don't See The Use Of It, I Certainly Won't Let You Clear It Away. Go Away And Think. Then, When You Can Come Back And Tell Me That You Do See The Use Of It, I May Allow You To Destroy It."
-Gilbert K. Chesterton
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[consider] A Fence Or

Gilbert K. Chesterton
[consider] A Fence Or Gate Erected Across A Road] The More Modern Type Of Reformer Goes Gaily Up To It And Says, "i Don't See The Use Of This; Let Us Clear It Away." To Which The More Intelligent Type Of Reformer Will Do Well To Answer: "if You Don't See The Use Of It, I Certainly Won't Let You Clear It Away. Go Away And Think. Then, When You Can Come Back And Tell Me That You Do See The Use Of It, I May Allow You To Destroy It."
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Intelligent
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More From Gilbert K. Chesterton
It Is Not Merely True That A Creed Unites Men. Nay, A Difference Of Creed Unites Men - So Long As It Is A Clear Difference. A Boundary Unites. Many A Magnanimous Moslem And Chivalrous Crusader Must Have Been Nearer To Each Other, Because They Were Both Dogmatists, Than Any Two Agnostics. "i Say God Is One," And "i Say God Is One But Also Three," That Is The Beginning Of A Good Quarrelsome, Manly Friendship.
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The Reformer Is Always Right About What's Wrong. However, He's Often Wrong About What Is Right.
Reformers
The Great Gaels Of Ireland Are The Men That God Made Mad, For All Their Wars Are Merry, And All Their Songs Are Sad.
Song
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One Of The Great Disadvantages Of Hurry Is That It Takes Such A Long Time.
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As Long As The Vision Of Heaven Is Always Changing, The Vision Of Earth Will Be Exactly The Same. No Ideal Will Remain Long Enough To Be Realized, Or Even Partly Realized. The Modern Young Man Will Never Change His Environment; For He Will Always Change His Mind.
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La Mejor Prueba De La Cultura Y La Liberalidad De Un Hombre Es Su Actitud Ante Las Cosas Que Nunca Sucedieron.
When Men Cease To Believe In God, They Will Believe In Anything
Believe
Men
Believe In God
The Ignorant Pronounce It Frood To Cavil Or Applaud The Well-informed Pronounce It Froyd But I Pronounce It Fraud.
Ignorant
Fraud
Wells
For Children Are Innocent And Love Justice, While Most Of Us Are Wicked And Naturally Prefer Mercy.
Love
Children
Justice
There Are Two Ways Of Dealing With Nonsense In This World. One Way Is To Put Nonsense In The Right Place; As When People Put Nonsense Into Nursery Rhymes. The Other Is To Put Nonsense In The Wrong Place; As When They Put It Into Educational Addresses, Psychological Criticisms, And Complaints Against Nursery Rhymes Or Other Normal Amusements Of Mankind.
Educational
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Hope Means Hoping When Things Are Hopeless, Or It Is No Virtue At All... As Long As Matters Are Really Hopeful, Hope Is Mere Flattery Or Platitude; It Is Only When Everything Is Hopeless That Hope Begins To Be A Strength.
Hope
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Marriage Is A Duel To The Death Which No Man Of Honour Should Decline.
Love
Men
Decline
All Good Men Are International. Nearly All Bad Men Are Cosmopolitan. If We Are To Be International We Must Be National.
Men
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Internationalism
That All War Is Physically Frightful Is Obvious; But If That Were A Moral Verdict, There Would Be No Difference Between A Torturer And A Surgeon. There Are Certain Intellectuals Who Are Too Bright To Be Content With Merely Praising Peace But Who Are Infuriated By Anybody Praising War. If No War Is Possible, All Criminality Has Its Chance
War
Differences
Would Be
Men Spoke Much In My Boyhood About Restricted Or Ruined Men Of Genius: And It Was Common To Say That Many A Man Was A Great Might-have-been. To Me It's A More Solid And Startling Fact That Any Man In The Street Is A Great Might-not-have-been.
Men
Genius
Might
Leaving The Complications Of The Human Breakfast-table Out Of Account, In An Elemental Sense, The Egg Only Exists To Produce The Chicken. But The Chicken Does Not Exist Only In Order To Produce Another Egg. He May Also Exist To Amuse Himself, To Praise God, And Even To Suggest Ideas To A French Dramatist. Being A Conscious Life, He Is, Or May Be, Valuable In Himself.
Animal
Order
Eggs
It's Not The World That's Got So Much Worse But The News Coverage That's Got So Much Better.
Media
World
News
Every True Artist Feels That He Is Touching Transcendental Truths; That His Images Are Shadows Of Things Seen Through The Veil.
Artist
Touching
Shadow
It Is Generally The Man Who Is Not Ready To Argue, Who Is Ready To Sneer.
Men
Arguing
Apologetic
There Are Two Kinds Of Peacemakers In The Modern World; And They Are Both, Though In Various Ways, A Nuisance. The First Peacemaker Is The Man Who Goes About Saying That He Agrees With Everybody. He Confuses Everybody. The Second Peacemaker Is The Man Who Goes About Saying That Everybody Agrees With Him. He Enrages Everybody. Between The Two Of Them They Produce A Hundred Times More Disputes And Distractions Than We Poor Pugnacious People Would Ever Have Thought Of In Our Lives.
Men
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People
Adventure Is The Champagne Of Life.
Inspirational
Inspirational Life
Adventure
There Is More Simplicity In The Man Who Eats Caviar On Impulse Than In The Man Who Eats Grape-nuts On Principle.
Peace
Men
Nuts
It Is Well Sometimes To Half Understand A Poem In The Same Manner That We Half Understand The World.
Half
World
Sometimes
The Devil's Walking Parody; On All Four-footed Things.
Horse
Devil
Four
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
The Trouble With Always Trying To Preserve The Health Of The Body Is That It Is So Difficult To Do Without Destroying The Health Of The Mind.
Health
Science
Always Trying
If We Could Destroy Custom At A Blow And See The Stars As A Child Sees Them, We Should Need No Other Apocalypse.
Inspirational
Nature
Stars
To Be Born Into This Earth Is To Be Born Into Uncongenial Surroundings, Hence To Be Born Into A Romance.
Romance
Earth
Born
The Whole Truth Is Generally The Ally Of Virtue; A Half-truth Is Always The Ally Of Some Vice.
Catholic
Half
Vices
I Do Not Feel Any Contempt For An Atheist, Who Is Often A Man Limited And Constrained By His Own Logic To A Very Sad Simplification.
Atheist
Men
Logic
Man Is An Exception, Whatever Else He Is. If He Is Not The Image Of God, Then He Is A Disease Of The Dust. If It Is Not True That A Divine Being Fell, Then We Can Only Say That One Of The Animals Went Entirely Off Its Head.
God
Animal
Men
Art Consists Of Limitation. The Most Beautiful Part Of Every Picture Is The Frame.
Beauty
Beautiful
Art
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Christian
Grief
Holiday
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Doctors
Evil
Disease
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Business
Socialism
Economic
To Hurry Through One's Leisure Is The Most Unbusiness-like Of Actions.
Progress
Leisure
Action
Marriage Is An Adventure, Like Going To War.
Cute
Marriage
Funny Love
Because Our Expression Is Imperfect We Need Friendship To Fill Up The Imperfections.
Friendship
Expression
Imperfection
The Function Of The Imagination Is Not To Make Strange Things Settled, So Much As To Make Settled Things Strange.
Imagination
Strange
Function
None Of The Modern Machines, None Of The Modern Paraphernalia. . . Have Any Power Except Over The People Who Choose To Use Them.
People
Progress
Machines
To Be Simple Is The Best Thing In The World.
Simple
Sweat
Simplicity
Boyhood Is A Most Complex And Incomprehensible Thing. Even When One Has Been Through It, One Does Not Understand What It Was. A Man Can Never Quite Understand A Boy, Even When He Has Been The Boy.
Son
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Boys
A Society Is In Decay, Final Or Transitional, When Common Sense Really Becomes Uncommon.
Faith
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The Real Trouble With This World Of Ours Is Not That It Is An Unreasonable One. The Trouble Is That It Is Nearly Reasonable, But Not Quite.
Real
World
Trouble
What We Suffer From Today Is Humility In The Wrong Place...the Old Humility Was A Spur That Prevented A Man From Stopping; Not A Nail In His Boot That Prevented Him From Going On. For The Old Humility Made A Man Doubtful About His Efforts, Which Made Him Work Harder. But The New Humility Makes A Man Doubtful About His Aims, Which Will Make Him Stop Working Altogether.
Hard Work
Humility
Men
I Would Rather A Boy Learnt In The Roughest School The Courage To Hit A Politician, Or Gained In The Hardest School The Learning To Refute Him - Rather Than That He Should Gain In The Most Enlightened School The Cunning To Copy Him.
Courage
School
Boys
Shouldn't Atheist Have An Equal Obligation To Explain Pleasure In A World Of Randomness. Where Does Pleasure Come From?
Atheist
Atheism
Doe
The Vault Above Us Is Not Deaf Because The Universe Is An Idiot; The Silence Is Not The Heartless Silence Of An Endless And Aimless World. Rather The Silence Around Us Is A Small And Pitiful Stillness Like The Prompt Stillness Of A Sick Room. We Are Perhaps Permitted Tragedy As A Sort Of Merciful Comedy, Because The Frantic Energy Of Divine Things Would Knock Us Down Like A Drunken Farce. We Can Take Our Own Tears More Lightly Than We Could Take The Tremendous Levities Of The Angels. So We Sit Perhaps In A Starry Chamber Of Silence While The Laughter Of The Heavens Is Too Loud For Us To Hear.
Christian
Laughter
Angel
The Professional Soldier Gains More And More Power As The General Courage Of A Community Declines.
Courage
Community
Soldier
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Lying
Bed
Made
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
The Present Condition Of Fame Is Merely Fashion.
Fashion
Literature
Fame
Such Professions As The Soldier And The Lawyer ... Give Ample Opportunity For Crimes But Not Much For Mere Illusions. ... If You Have Lost A Battle You Cannot Believe You Have Won It; If Your Client Is Hanged You Cannot Pretend That You Have Gotten Him Off.
Believe
Opportunity
Giving
Before The Roman Came To Rye Or Out To Severn Strode, / The Rolling English Drunkard Made The Rolling English Road.
Rolling
Made
Drunkards
The Central Idea Of Poetry Is The Idea Of Guessing Right, Like A Child.
Children
Ideas
Guessing
There Is A Law Written In The Darkest Of The Books Of Life, And It Is This: If You Look At A Thing Nine Hundred And Ninety-nine Times, You Are Perfectly Safe; If You Look At It The Thousandth Time, You Are In Frightful Danger Of Seeing It For The First Time.
Book
Ninety Nine
Law
Spring Never Is Spring Unless It Comes Too Soon.
Nature
Spring
Environment
Classic Literature Is Still Something That Hangs In The Air Like A Song.
Song
Air
Literature
Realism Is Simply Romanticism That Has Lost Its Reason...that Is Its Reason For Existing.
Reason
Lost
Realism
America Has A Genius For The Encouragement Of Fame.
Encouragement
America
Genius
Art, Like Morality, Consists In Drawing The Line Somewhere.
Art
Funny Friend
Drawing
We Actually Love Ourselves More Than We Love Joy.
Joy
The Real Great Man Is The Man Who Makes Every Man Feel Great.
Real
Men
Greatness
To Say That A Man Is An Idealist Is Merely To Say That He Is A Man.
Life
Men
Idealist
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.
Country
Book
Valuable
Customs Are Generally Unselfish. Habits Are Nearly Always Selfish.
Selfish
Habit
Unselfish
The Truth Is, Of Course, That The Curtness Of The Ten Commandments Is An Evidence, Not Of The Gloom And Narrowness Of A Religion, But, On The Contrary, Of Its Liberality And Humanity. It Is Shorter To State The Things Forbidden Than The Things Permitted; Precisely Because Most Things Are Permitted, And Only A Few Things Are Forbidden.
Christian
Humanity
Truth Is
I Would Maintain That Thanks Are The Highest Form Of Thought; And That Gratitude Is Happiness Doubled By Wonder.
Leadership
Thank You
Teacher
In Dealing With The Arrogant Asserter Of Doubt, It Is Not The Right Method To Tell Him To Stop Doubting. It Is Rather The Right Method To Tell Him To Go On Doubting, To Doubt A Little More, To Doubt Every Day Newer And Wilder Things In The Universe, Until At Last, By Some Strange Enlightenment, He May Begin To Doubt Himself.
Doubt
Enlightenment
Arrogant
There Are A Great Many Good People, And A Great Many Sane People Here This Afternoon. Unfortunately, By A Kind Of Coincidence, All The Good People Are Mad, And All The Sane People Are Wicked.
People
Mad
Wicked
We Are Always Giving Foreign Names To Very Native Things. If There Is A Thing That Reeks Of The Glorious Tradition Of The Old English Tavern, It Is Toasted Cheese. But For Some Wild Reason We Call It Welsh Rarebit. I Believe That What We Call Irish Stew Might More Properly Be Called English Stew, And That It Is Not Particularly Familiar In Ireland.
Food
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Names
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Equality
Discovery
Cost
In Real Life The People Who Are Most Bigoted Are The People Who Have No Convictions At All.
Racism
People
Conviction
The Miser Is The Man Who Starves Himself And Everybody Else, In Order To Worship Wealth In Its Dead Form, As Distinct From Its Living Form.
Men
Order
Greed
To Be Clever Enough To Get All That Money, One Must Be Stupid Enough To Want It.
Funny
Money
Clever
It Is The Decisive People Who Have Become Civilised; It Is The Indecisive, Otherwise Called The Higher Sceptics, Or The Idealistic Doubters, Who Have Remained Barbarians.
People
Barbarians
Doubters
Original Sin Is The Only Doctrine That's Been Empirically Validated By 2,000 Years Of Human History.
Years
Doctrine
Sin
Lying In Bed Would Be An Altogether Perfect And Supreme Experience If Only One Had A Colored Pencil Long Enough To Draw On The Ceiling.
Art
Lying
Long
The Things We See Every Day Are The Things We Never See At All.
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
The Rich Are The Scum Of The Earth In Every Country.
Country
Scum Of The Earth
Rich
It Was The Mystical Dogma Of Bentham And Adam Smith And The Rest, That Some Of The Worst Of Human Passions Would Turn Out To Be All For The Best. It Was The Mysterious Doctrine That Selfishness Would Do The Work Of Unselfishness.
Passion
Selfishness
Doctrine
Why Be Something To Everybody When You Can Be Everything To Somebody?
Love You
Literature Is A Luxury; Fiction Is A Necessity.
Inspirational
Book
Reading
We Make Our Friends; We Make Our Enemies; But God Makes Our Next Door Neighbour.
Funny
Friendship
God
We Lose Our Bearings Entirely By Speaking Of The 'lower Classes' When We Mean Humanity Minus Ourselves.
Mean
Class
Humanity
Many Clever Men Like You Have Trusted To Civilization. Many Clever Babylonians, Many Clever Egyptians, Many Clever Men At The End Of Rome. Can You Tell Me, In A World That Is Flagrant With The Failures Of Civilisation, What There Is Particularly Immortal About Yours?
Clever
Men
Rome
The Repetition In Nature May Not Be A Mere Recurrence; It May Be A Theatrical Encore.
May
Recurrence
Repetition
The Home Is Not The One Tame Place In The World Of Adventure. It Is The One Wild Place In The World Of Rules And Set Tasks.
Inspirational
Home
Adventure
You Could Compile The Worst Book In The World Entirely Out Of Selected Passages From The Best Writers In The World.
Book
Writing
World
A Sober Man May Become A Drunkard Through Being A Coward. A Brave Man May Become A Coward Through Being A Drunkard.
Men
Brave
Coward
The Essence Of All Pantheism, Evolutionism, And Modern Cosmic Religion Is Really This Proposition: That Nature Is Our Mother. Unfortunately, If You Regard Nature As A Mother, You Discover She Is A Step-mother.
Mother
Essence
Steps
When "everyone Knows" That Something Is So, It Is Always More Interesting And Often Illuminating To Assumeexactly The Opposite, And To See Where That Leads.
Opposites
Interesting
Knows
There Is Nothing So Weak, For Working Purposes, As This Enormous Importance Attached To Immediate Victory. There Is Nothing That Fails Like Success.
Victory
Purpose
Failing
A Great City Is The Place To Escape The True Drama Of Provincial Life, And Find Solace In Fantasy.
Drama
Cities
Fantasy
There Should Be A Burnished Tablet Let Into The Ground On The Spot Where Some Courageous Man First Ate Stilton Cheese, And Survived.
Courage
Men
Tablets
I Always Like A Dog So Long As He Isn't Spelled Backward.
Funny
Spiritual
Dog
Fairy Tales Are More Than True.
Dragons
Fairy Stories
Fairy Tale
Your Offer," He Said, "is Far Too Idiotic To Be Declined.
Said
Idiotic
Offers
Science Must Not Impose Any Philosophy, Any More Than The Telephone Must Tell Us What To Say.
Philosophy
Telephones
Just At Present You Only See The Tree By The Light Of The Lamp. I Wonder When You Would Ever See The Lamp By The Light Of The Tree.
Light
Tree
Lamps
All Conservatism Is Based Upon The Idea That If You Leave Things Alone You Leave Them As They Are. But You Do Not. If You Leave A Thing Alone You Leave It To A Torrent Of Change.
Change
Ideas
Political
[buddhism And Christianity] Are In One Sense Parallel And Equal; As A Mound And A Hollow, As A Valley And A Hill. There Is A Sense In Which That Sublime Despair Is The Only Alternative To That Divine Audacity. It Is Even True That The Truly Spiritual And Intellectual Man Sees It As Sort Of Dilemma; A Very Hard And Terrible Choice. There Is Little Else On Earth That Can Compare With These For Completeness. And He Who Does Not Climb The Mountain Of Christ Does Indeed Fall Into The Abyss Of Buddha.
Spiritual
Fall
Buddhism
There Are Some Desires That Are Not Desirable.
Desire
Morality
Desirable
Playing As Children Means Playing Is The Most Serious Thing In The World.
Baby
Children
Mean
In Truth, There Are Only Two Kinds Of People; Those Who Accept Dogma And Know It, And Those Who Accept Dogma And Don't Know It.
Two
People
Dogma
Savages And Modern Artists Are Alike Strangely Driven To Create Something Uglier Than Themselves. But The Artists Find It Harder.
Art
Savages
Literature
Boys Like Romantic Tales; But Babies Like Realistic Tales-because They Find Them Romantic.
Baby
Children
Boys
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
Men
Marxism: The Theory That All The Important Things In History Are Rooted In An Economic Motive, That History Is A Science, A Science Of The Search For Food.
Food
Science
Important
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
The Object Of A New Year Is Not That We Should Have A New Year. It Is That We Should Have A New Soul And A New Nose; New Feet, A New Backbone, New Ears, And New Eyes. Unless A Particular Man Made New Year Resolutions, He Would Make No Resolutions. Unless A Man Starts Afresh About Things, He Will Certainly Do Nothing Effective.
Inspirational
New Year
Eye
Modern Science Is Necessarily A Double-edged Tool, A Tool That Cuts Both Ways. ... There Is No Doubt That A Zeppelin Is A Wonderful Thing; But That Did Not Prevent It From Becoming A Horrible Thing.
Cutting
Science
Doubt
If We Desire European Civilization To Be A Raid And A Rescue, We Shall Insist Rather That Souls Are In Real Peril Than That Their Peril Is Ultimately Unreal. And If We Wish To Exalt The Outcast And The Crucified, We Shall Rather Wish To Think That A Veritable God Was Crucified, Rather Than A Mere Sage Or Hero. Above All, If We Wish To Protect The Poor We Shall Be In Favour Of Fixed Rules And Clear Dogmas. The Rules Of A Club Are Occasionally In Favour Of The Poor Member. The Drift Of A Club Is Always In Favour Of The Rich One.
Real
Hero
Thinking
Without Education We Are In A Horrible And Deadly Danger Of Taking Educated People Seriously.
Inspirational
Education
School
The Greatest Political Storm Flutters Only A Fringe Of Humanity. But An Ordinary Man And An Ordinary Woman And Their Ordinary Children Literally Alter The Destiny Of Nations.
Children
Destiny
Men
Teach To The Young, Men's Enduring Truths, And Let The Learned Amuse Themselves With Their Passing Errors.
Men
Errors
Passing
Men Always Talk About The Most Important Things To Perfect Strangers.
Relationship
Uncles
Men
Jesus Promised His Disciples Three Things—that They Would Be Completely Fearless, Absurdly Happy, And In Constant Trouble.
Jesus
Fearless
Church
It Is Absurd For The Evolutionist To Complain That It Is Unthinkable For An Admittedly Unthinkable God To Make Everything Out Of Nothing And Then Pretend That It Is More Thinkable That Nothing Should Turn Itself Into Everything.
Knowledge
Complaining
Absurd
It Is Hard To Make Government Representative When It Is Also Remote.
Government
Hard
Representatives
Journalism Is Popular, But It Is Popular Mainly As Fiction. Life Is One World, And Life Seen In The Newspapers Is Another.
Fiction
Literature
World
The Free Man Owns Himself. He Can Damage Himself With Either Eating Or Drinking; He Can Ruin Himself With Gambling. If He Does He Is Certainly A Damn Fool, And He Might Possibly Be A Damned Soul; But If He May Not, He Is Not A Free Man Any More Than A Dog.
Dog
Drinking
Men
He Can Only Get Away From Death By Continually Stepping Within An Inch Of It.
Death
Courage
Inches
Of All Modern Notions, The Worst Is This: That Domesticity Is Dull. Inside The Home, They Say, Is Dead Decorum And Routine; Outside Is Adventure And Variety. But The Truth Is That The Home Is The Only Place Of Liberty, The Only Spot On Earth Where A Man Can Alter Arrangements Suddenly, Make An Experiment Or Indulge In A Whim. The Home Is Not The One Tame Place In A World Of Adventure; It Is The One Wild Place In A World Of Rules And Set Tasks.
Home
Adventure
Men
The More We Are Certain What Good Is, The More We Shall See Good In Everything.
Certain
He Had Found The Thing Which The Modern People Call Impressionism, Which Is Another Name For That Final Scepticism Which Can Find No Floor To The Universe.
Names
People
Finals
...i Will Praise The English Climate Till I Die—even If I Die Of The English Climate. There Is No Weather So Good As English Weather. Nay, In A Real Sense There Is No Weather At All Anywhere But In England. In France You Have Much Sun And Some Rain; In Italy You Have Hot Winds And Cold Winds; In Scotland And Ireland You Have Rain, Either Thick Or Thin; In America You Have Hells Of Heat And Cold, And In The Tropics You Have Sunstrokes Varied By Thunderbolts. But All These You Have On A Broad And Brutal Scale, And You Settle Down Into Contentment Or Despair.
Real
Rain
America
Truth Can Understand Error, But Error Cannot Understand Truth.
Errors
What Is Education? Properly Speaking, There Is No Such Thing As Education. Education Is Simply The Soul Of A Society As It Passes From One Generation To Another. Whatever The Soul Is Like, It Will Have To Be Passed On Somehow, Consciously Or Unconsciously, And That Transition May Be Called Education. ... What We Need Is To Have A Culture Before We Hand It Down. In Other Words, It Is A Truth, However Sad And Strange, That We Cannot Give What We Have Not Got, And Cannot Teach To Other People What We Do Not Know Ourselves.
Wisdom
Hands
People
Science Is The Study Of The Admitted Laws Of Existence, Which Cannot Prove A Universal Negative About Whether Those Laws Could Ever Be Suspended By Something Admittedly Above Them. It Is As If We Were To Say That A Lawyer Was So Deeply Learned In The American Constitution That He Knew There Could Never Be A Revolution In America.
Science
Law
America
A Woman Uses Her Intelligence To Find Reasons To Support Her Intuition.
Support
Intelligence
Intuition
Laughter Has Something In It Common With The Ancient Words Of Faith And Inspiration; It Unfreezes Pride And Unwinds Secrecy; It Makes People Forget Themselves In The Presence Of Something Greater Than Themselves.
Laughter
Inspiration
Pride
If The World Grows To Worldly, It Can Be Rebuked By The Church; But If The Church Grows To Worldly, It Cannot Be Adequately Rebuked For Worldlyness By The World.
Church
World
Grows
An Enormous Amount Of Modern Ingenuity Is Expended On Finding Defences For The Indefensible Conduct Of The Powerful. As I Have Said Above, These Defences Generally Exhibit Themselves Most Emphatically In The Form Of Appeals To Physical Science. And Of All The Forms In Which Science, Or Pseudo-science, Has Come To The Rescue Of The Rich And Stupid, There Is None So Singular As The Singular Invention Of The Theory Of Races.
Powerful
Stupid
Race
No Sane Person, I Hope, Would Accuse Me Of Saying That Every Distributist Must Drink Beer; Especially If He Could Brew His Own Cider Or Found Claret Better For His Health. But I Do Most Emphatically Scorn And Scout The Vulgar Refinement That Regards Beer As Something Unseemly And Humiliating. And I Would Shout The Name Of Beer A Hundred Times A Day, To Shock All The Snobs Who Have So Shameful A Sense Of Shame.
Beer
Names
Cider
. . . For Friendship Implies Individuality; Whereas Comradeship Really Implies The Temporary Subordination, If Not The Temporary Swamping Of Individuality. Friends Are The Better For Being Two; But Comrades Are The Better For Being Two Million.
Friendship
Two
Individuality
In A World Flagrant With The Failures Of Civilization, What Is There Particularly Immortal About Our Own?
Failure
Civilization
World
A Faith Is That Which Is Able To Survive A Mood.
Able
Mood
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
If You Convey To A Woman That Something Ought To Be Done, There Is Always A Dreadful Danger That She Will Suddenly Do It.
Done
Danger
Ought
There Have Been Household Gods And Household Saints And Household Fairies. I Am Not Sure That There Have Yet Been Any Factory Gods Or Factory Saints Or Factory Fairies. I May Be Wrong, As I Am No Commericial Expert, But I Have Not Heard Of Them As Yet.
Saint
Culture
May
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
For Us Who Live In Cities Nature Is Not Natural. Nature Is Supernatural. Just As Monks Watched And Strove To Get A Glimpse Of Heaven, So We Watch And Strive To Get A Glimpse Of Earth. It Is As If Men Had Cake And Wine Every Day But Were Sometimes Allowed Common Bread.
Nature
Wine
Men
The Cosmos Is About The Smallest Hole That A Man Can Hide His Head In.
Men
Cosmos
Literature
Never Invoke The Gods Unless You Really Want Them To Appear. It Annoys Them Very Much.
Annoyed
Literature
Want
Most Modern Freedom Is At Root Fear. It Is Not So Much That We Are Too Bold To Endure Rules; It Is Rather That We Are Too Timid To Endure Responsibilities.
Responsibility
Roots
Modern
The Life Of A Thinking Man Will Probably Be Divided Into Two Parts -- The First In Which He Desires To Exterminate Modern Thinkers, And The Second In Which He Desires To Watch Them Exterminating Each Other. ... Suppose, For Instance, There Is An Old Story And A New Skeptic Who Is Skeptical Of The Story. We Have Only To Wait A Little While For A Yet Newer Skeptic Who Is Skeptical Of The Skeptic. He Will Probably Find The Old Notion Actually A Help In His New Notion. This Process Is An Abstract Truth Applying To Anything, Apart From Agreement Or Disagreement.
Truth
Men
Thinking
A Great Curse Has Fallen Upon Modern Life With The Discovery Of The Vastness Of The Word Education.
Discovery
Modern Life
Vastness
Free Verse'? You May As Well Call Sleeping In A Ditch 'free Architecture'.
Sleep
May
Architecture
One Elephant Having A Trunk Was Odd; But All Elephants Having Trunks Looked Like A Plot.
Elephants
Plot
Odd
The Poor Complain That They Are Governed Badly. The Rich Complain That They Are Governed At All.
Complaining
Rich
Poor
A Child's Instinct Is Almost Perfect In The Matter Of Fighting. The Child's Hero Is Always The Man Or Boy Who Defends Himself Suddenly And Splendidly Against Aggression.
Children
Hero
Fighting
Acceptance Is The Truest Kinship With Humanity.
Acceptance
Humanity
Kinship
Though The Academic Authorities Are Actually Proud Of Conducting Everything By Means Of Examinations, They Seldom Indulge In What Religious People Used To Descibe As Self-examination. The Consequence Is That The Modern State Has Educated Its Citizens In A Series Of Ephemeral Fads.
Religious
Mean
Self
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
All Architecture Is Great Architecture After Sunset.
Sunset
Nocturnal
Architecture
The Only Thing That Has Kept The Race Of Men From The Mad Extremes Of The Convent And The Pirate-galley, The Night-club And The Lethal Chamber, Has Been Mysticism - The Belief That Logic Is Misleading, And That Things Are Not What They Seem.
Night
Men
Race
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.
Dream
Men
Thinking
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
There Is A Road From The Eye To The Heart That Does Not Go Through The Intellect. Men Do Not Quarrel About The Meaning Of Sunsets; They Never Dispute That The Hawthorn Says The Best And Wittiest Thing About The Spring.
Spring
Sunset
Eye
It Is Human To Err; And The Only Final And Deadly Error, Among All Our Errors, Is Denying That We Have Ever Erred.
Errors
Finals
Humans
Let Your Religion Be Less Of A Theory And More Of A Love Affair.
Love
Faith
Religious
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
Dear Sir: Regarding Your Article 'what's Wrong With The World?' I Am. Yours Truly.
World
Dear
Articles
It May Not Be Automatic Necessity That Makes All Daisies Alike; It May Be That God Makes Every Daisy Separately, But Has Never Gotten Tired Of Making Them
Tired
May
Orthodoxy
Why Are We Not Grateful To God For Filling Our Stockings With Legs?
Christmas
Grateful
Thank You God
With Any Recovery From Morbidity There Must Go A Certain Healthy Humiliation.
Get Well
Recovery
Healthy
There Is Nothing Harder To Learn Than Painting And Nothing Which Most People Take Less Trouble About Learning.
Education
People
Painting
Eugenics Asserts That All Men Must Be So Stupid That They Cannot Manage Their Own Affairs; And Also So Clever That They Can Manage Each Other's.
Clever
Stupid
Men
What The World Wants, What The World Is Waiting For, Is Not Modern Poetry Or Classical Poetry Or Neo-classical Poetry - But Good Poetry. And The Dreadful Disreputable Doubt, Which Stirs In My Own Skeptical Mind, Is Doubt About Whether It Would Really Matter Much What Style A Poet Chose To Write In, In Any Period, As Long As He Wrote Good Poetry.
Writing
Long
Waiting
I Am The Fool In This Story, And No Rebel Shall Hurl Me From My Throne.
Rebel
Thrones
Stories
I Should Say That Psycho-analysis Was Confession Without Absolution.
Analysis
Psycho
Confession
...but This Is The Real Objection To That Torrent Of Modern Talk About Treating Crime As Disease, About Making Prison Merely A Hygienic Environment Like A Hospital, Of Healing Sin By Slow Scientific Methods. The Fallacy Of The Whole Thing Is That Evil Is A Matter Of Active Choice Whereas Disease Is Not.
Real
Healing
Evil
Ingratitude Is Surely The Chief Of The Intellectual Sins Of Man. He Takes His Political Benefits For Granted, Just As He Takes The Skies And The Seasons For Granted.
Men
Sky
Political
For The Only Courage Worth Calling Courage Must Necessarily Mean That The Soul Passes A Breaking Point And Does Not Break.
Mean
Point Break
Soul
[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
It Is Better To Speak Wisdom Foolishly Like The Saints Than To Speak Folly Wisely Like The Deans.
Education
Saint
Speak
The Dignity Of The Artist Lies In His Duty Of Keeping Awake The Sense Of Wonder In The World.
Lying
Artist
World
The Coming Peril Is The Intellectual, Educational, Psychological And Artistic Overproduction, Which, Equally With Economic Overproduction, Threatens The Well-being Of Contemporary Civilisation. People Are Inundated, Blinded, Deafened, And Mentally Paralysed By A Flood Of Vulgar And Tasteless Externals, Leaving Them No Time For Leisure, Thought, Or Creation From Within Themselves.
Educational
People
Leaving
When Men Choose Not To Believe In God, They Do Not Thereafter Believe In Nothing, They Then Become Capable Of Believing In Anything.
Believe
Men
Believe In God
But Those Dealing In The Actual Manufacture Of Mind Are Dealing In A Very Explosive Material. The Material Is Not Merely The Clay Of Which Man Is Master, But The Truths Or Semblances Of Truth Which Have A Certain Mastery Over Man. The Material Is Explosive Because It Must Be Taken Seriously. The Men Writing Books Really Are Throwing Bombs.
Book
Taken
Writing
Each Generation Is Converted By The Saint Who Contradicts It Most.
Saint
Generations
It's The First Effect Of Not Believing In God That You Lose Your Common Sense.
Believe
Common Sense
Firsts
Nothing Is So Remote From Us As The Thing Which Is Not Old Enough To Be History And Not New Enough To Be News.
News
Enough
A Crown Of Roses Is Also A Crown Of Thorns.
Rose
Crowns
Thorns
I've Searched All The Parks In All The Cities - And Found No Statues Of Committees.
Inspirational
Cities
Parks
Leisure Is Being Allowed To Do Nothing.
Leisure
No Man Should Leave In The Universe Anything Of Which He Is Afraid.
Fear
Men
Should
The Man Who Says, 'my Country Right Or Wrong' Is Like The Man Who Says, 'my Mother Drunk Or Sober'
Mother
Country
Men
The Prophet And The Quack Are Alike Admired For A Generation, And Admired For The Wrong Reasons.
Generations
Reason
Prophet
Idolatry Is When You Worship What You Should Use, And Use What You Should Worship.
Use
Worship
Should
I Am Not Fighting A Hopeless Fight. People Who Have Fought In Real Fights Don't, As A Rule.
Real
Fighting
People
Shall I Tell You The Secret Of The Whole World? It Is That We Have Only Known The Back Of The World. We See Everything From Behind, And It Looks Brutal. That Is Not A Tree, But The Back Of A Tree. That Is Not A Cloud, But The Back Of A Cloud. Cannot You See That Everything Is Stooping And Hiding A Face? If We Could Only Get Round In Front--
Clouds
Tree
Secret
Gratitude, Being Nearly The Greatest Of Human Duties, Is Also Nearly The Most Difficult.
Gratitude
Duty
Difficult
Too Much Capitalism Does Not Mean Too Many Capitalists, But Too Few Capitalists.
Mean
Doe
Too Much
Comradeship Is Quite A Different Thing From Friendship. . .
Friendship
Different
Different Things
There Are An Infinity Of Angles At Which One Falls, Only One At Which One Stands.
Fall
Orthodoxy
Infinity
Humour Is Meant, In A Literal Sense, To Make Game Of Man; That Is, To Dethrone Him From His Official Dignity And Hunt Him Like Game.
Men
Games
Dignity
I Don't Deny," He Said, "that There Should Be Priests To Remind Men That They Will One Day Die. I Only Say That At Certain Strange Epochs It Is Necessary To Have Another Kind Of Priests, Called Poets, Actually To Remind Men That They Are Not Dead Yet.
Men
One Day
Strange
Understanding Quotes: Their Essence and Application

Quotes, or quotations, are powerful tools in communication, encapsulating ideas, emotions, and wisdom in concise expressions. They serve various purposes across different contexts, from academic writing to everyday conversation.

1. Defining Quotes

A quote is a repetition of someone else's statement or thoughts. It can be a direct replication of words spoken or written by another individual, often used to support arguments, provide evidence, or convey profound insights.


2. The Importance of Quotes

2.1. Enhancing Credibility

Incorporating quotes from authoritative sources can bolster the credibility of your work. By referencing experts or primary sources, you demonstrate thorough research and a solid foundation for your arguments.


2.2. Providing Evidence

Quotes serve as concrete evidence to support claims. In academic and professional writing, they validate points made, offering readers a basis to trust the information presented.


2.3. Conveying Emotions and Perspectives

Quotes can encapsulate emotions and perspectives succinctly. They allow writers to express complex feelings or viewpoints through the words of others, often more eloquently than paraphrasing.


3. Types of Quotes

3.1. Direct Quotes

Direct quotes involve copying the exact words from a source, enclosed in quotation marks. They are used when the original wording is significant or particularly well-expressed.


3.2. Indirect Quotes (Paraphrasing)

Indirect quotes restate the original message in your own words. While not enclosed in quotation marks, they still require proper attribution to the original source.


3.3. Block Quotes

Block quotes are lengthy direct quotations, formatted as a separate block of text. They are typically used for quotes exceeding a certain length, varying by citation style. For instance, in APA style, quotes longer than 40 words are formatted as block quotes.



4. Proper Usage of Quotes


4.1. Contextual Relevance

Ensure that the quote you choose is relevant to the topic and adds value to your content. Avoid inserting quotes solely for decorative purposes.


4.2. Integration into Your Writing

Seamlessly integrate quotes into your writing. Introduce them appropriately and follow up with analysis or commentary to connect them to your main points.


4.3. Attribution and Citation

Always attribute quotes to their original authors and provide proper citations according to the required style guide (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.).


5. Common Mistakes to Avoid


5.1. Overusing Quotes

Relying too heavily on quotes can overshadow your voice. Use them sparingly to support your arguments, not replace them.


5.2. Lack of Analysis

Presenting a quote without analysis or explanation can leave readers questioning its relevance. Always follow up with your interpretation or discussion.


5.3. Misquoting or Taking Out of Context

Ensure that quotes are accurate and not taken out of context, as this can mislead readers and undermine your credibility.



6. Quotes in Different Contexts


6.1. Academic Writing

In academic writing, quotes are used to support arguments, provide evidence, and engage with existing literature. Proper citation is crucial to avoid plagiarism.


6.2. Journalism

Journalists use quotes to provide firsthand accounts, add authenticity, and present multiple perspectives within a story.


6.3. Literature and Creative Writing

In literature, quotes can be used to convey character voices, themes, and stylistic elements. They enrich narratives and provide depth to storytelling.



7. Punctuation and Formatting


Understanding the correct punctuation and formatting of quotes is essential:


Quotation Marks: Always enclose direct quotes within quotation marks.


Punctuation Placement: In American English, periods and commas are placed inside quotation marks, while colons and semicolons are placed outside.


Block Quotes: For longer quotes, format them as block quotes without quotation marks, and indent the entire block.



8. Ethical Considerations


Ethical use of quotes involves accurate representation, proper attribution, and respect for intellectual property. Misuse can lead to plagiarism, which carries serious academic and professional consequences.

9. Tools for Managing Quotes


Utilize tools like citation generators and plagiarism checkers to manage quotes effectively. These tools help ensure proper formatting and originality in your writing.



Conclusion


Quotes are invaluable in enriching content, providing evidence, and conveying complex ideas succinctly. When used appropriately, they enhance the quality and credibility of your writing. Always ensure relevance, proper integration, and ethical usage to maximize their impact.


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