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How You Think When You Lose Determines How Long It Will Be Until You Win.
-Gilbert K. Chesterton
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How You Think When

Gilbert K. Chesterton
...
How You Think When You Lose Determines How Long It Will Be Until You Win.

Understanding the Quote: "how you think when you lose determines how long it will be..."

This quote by Gilbert K. Chesterton reflects deeply on the theme of encouragement. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Encouragement, Clever, Failure, 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 encouragement and clever. 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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Encouragement
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More From Gilbert K. Chesterton
But Whenever One Meets Modern Thinkers (as One Often Does) Progressing Toward A Madhouse, One Always Finds, On Inquiry, That They Have Just Had A Splendid Escape From Another Madhouse. Thus, Hundreds Of People Become Socialists, Not Because They Have Tried Socialism And Found It Nice, But Because They Have Tried Individualism And Found It Particularly Nasty.
Nice
People
Progress
I Represent The Jolly Mass Of Mankind. I Am The Happy And Reckless Christian.
Christian
Reckless
Mass
Faith Means Believing The Unbelievable.
Hope
Believe
Mean
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
Ideas Are Dangerous, But The Man To Whom They Are Least Dangerous Is The Man Of Ideas. He Is Acquainted With Ideas, And Moves Among Them Like A Lion-tamer. Ideas Are Dangerous, But The Man To Whom They Are Most Dangerous Is The Man Of No Ideas. The Man Of No Ideas Will Find The First Idea Fly To His Head Like Wine To The Head Of A Teetotaller.
Moving
Wine
Men
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
[fairy Tales] Make Rivers Run With Wine Only To Make Us Remember, For One Wild Moment, That They Run With Water.
Running
Wine
Rivers
He Must Not Merely Cling To Life, For Then He Will Be A Coward, And Will Not Escape. He Must Not Merely Wait For Death, For Then He Will Be A Suicide, And Will Not Escape. He Must Seek His Life In A Spirit Of Furious Indifference To It.
Suicide
Waiting
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
The Sentimentalist, Roughly Speaking, Is The Man Who Wants To Eat His Cake And Have It. He Has No Sense Of Honor About Ideas; He Will Not See That One Must Pay For An Idea As Well As For Anything Else. He Will Have Them All At Once In One Wild Intellectual Harem, No Matter How Much They Quarrel And Contradict Each Other.
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
Steps
There's A Lot Of Difference Between Listening And Hearing.
Differences
Listening
Listening And Hearing
It Might Reasonably Be Maintained That The True Object Of All Human Life Is Play. Earth Is A Task Garden; Heaven Is A Playground. To Be At Last In Such Secure Innocence That One Can Juggle With The Universe And The Stars, To Be So Good That One Can Treat Everything As A Joke - That May Be, Perhaps, The Real End And Final Holiday Of Human Souls.
Faith
Stars
Real
Surely We Cannot Take An Open Question Like The Supernatural And Shut It With A Bang, Turning The Key Of The Madhouse On All The Mystics Of History. You Cannot Take The Region Of The Unknown And Calmly Say That, Though You Know Nothing About It, You Know All The Gates Are Locked. We Do Not Know Enough About The Unknown To Know That It Is Unknowable.
Keys
Bangs
Enough
Science Must Not Impose Any Philosophy, Any More Than The Telephone Must Tell Us What To Say.
Philosophy
Telephones
Most Americans ... Have A Sort Of Permanent Intoxication From Within, A Sort Of Invisible Champagne.
Invisible
Champagne
Intoxication
The Central Idea Of Poetry Is The Idea Of Guessing Right, Like A Child.
Children
Ideas
Guessing
To The Humble Man, And To The Humble Man Alone, The Sun Is Really A Sun; To The Humble Man, And To The Humble Man Alone, The Sea Is Really A Sea.
Humble
Men
Sea
We Are To Regard Existence As A Raid Or Great Adventure; It Is To Be Judged, Therefore, Not By What Calamities It Encounters, But By What Flag It Follows And What High Town It Assaults. The Most Dangerous Thing In The World Is To Be Alive; One Is Always In Danger Of One's Life. But Anyone Who Shrinks From That Is A Traitor To The Great Scheme And Experiment Of Being.
Adventure
Encounters
Flags
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
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
War
Men
There Are No Boring Subjects, Only Disinterested Minds.
Mind
Boring
Subjects
The Whole Curse Of The Last Century Has Been What Is Called The Swing Of The Pendulum; That Is, The Idea That Man Must Go Alternately From One Extreme To The Other. It Is A Shameful And Even Shocking Fancy; It Is The Denial Of The Whole Dignity Of The Mankind. When Man Is Alive He Stands Still. It Is Only When He Is Dead That He Swings.
Men
Swings
Ideas
A Great Classic Means A Man Whom One Can Praise Without Having Read.
Mean
Men
Classic
Journalism Largely Consists Of Saying 'lord Jones Is Dead' To People Who Never Knew That Lord Jones Was Alive.
Funny
Business
Humor
Science In The Modern World Has Many Uses; Its Chief Use, However, Is To Provide Long Words To Cover The Errors Of The Rich.
Science
Errors
Long
There Are Many Ways To Fall Down, But There's Only One Way To Stand Up Straight.
Fall
Way
Falling Down
My Brother, Cecil Edward Chesterton, Was Born When I Was About Five Years Old; And, After A Brief Pause, Began To Argue. He Continued To Argue To The End. I Am Glad To Think That Through All Those Years We Never Stopped Arguing; And We Never Once Quarreled. Perhaps The Principal Objection To A Quarrel Is That It Interrupts An Argument.
Brother
Thinking
Years
We Are All In The Same Boat, In A Stormy Sea, And We Owe Each Other A Terrible Loyalty.
Inspirational
Inspiring
Loyalty
A Woman Uses Her Intelligence To Find Reasons To Support Her Intuition.
Support
Intelligence
Intuition
Adventure Is The Champagne Of Life.
Inspirational
Inspirational Life
Adventure
Just The Other Day In The Underground I Enjoyed The Pleasure Of Offering My Seat To Three Ladies.
Food
Offering
Three
With Every Step Of Our Lives We Enter Into The Middle Of Some Story Which We Are Certain To Misunderstand.
Stories
Steps
Middle
It Is Very Foolish Of A Man To Be Frightened Of A Skeleton, For Nature Has Put An Insurmountable Obstacle Against Running Away From It.
Running
Men
Skeletons
This Is The Age In Which Thin And Theoretic Minorities Can Cover And Conquer Unconscious And Untheoretic Majorities.
Progress
Age
Minorities
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.
Men
Alive
Detectives
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
One May Understand The Cosmos, But Never The Ego; The Self Is More Distant Than Any Star.
Stars
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The Problem Of Disbelieving In God Is Not That A Man Ends Up Believing Nothing. Alas, It Is Much Worse. He Ends Up Believing Anything.
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Men
Problem
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
Mean
Long
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
[paradox Is] Truth Standing On Its Head To Gain Attention.
Attention
Gains
Paradox
It Is Assumed That The Skeptic Has No Bias; Whereas He Has A Very Obvious Bias In Favour Of Skepticism.
Favour
Obvious
Skepticism
The True Object Of All Human Life Is Play. Earth Is A Task Garden; Heaven Is A Playground.
Fun
Inspirational Life
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And My Haunting Instinct That Somehow Good Was Not Merely A Tool To Be Used, But A Relic To Be Guarded, Like The Goods From Crusoe's Ship--even That Had Been The Wild Whisper Of Something Originally Wise, For, According To Christianity, We Were Indeed The Survivors Of A Wreck, The Crew Of A Golden Ship That Had Gone Down Before The Beginning Of The World.
Wise
Survivor
Tools
...the Primary Paradox That Man Is Superior To All The Things Around Him And Yet Is At Their Mercy.
Men
Mercy
Paradox
The Humorous Look Of Children Is Perhaps The Most Endearing Of All The Bonds That Hold The Cosmos Together.
Children
Humorous
Together
The Professional Soldier Gains More And More Power As The General Courage Of A Community Declines.
Courage
Community
Soldier
Nothing Is Poetical If Plain Daylight Is Not Poetical; And No Monster Should Amaze Us If The Normal Man Does Not Amaze.
Men
Daylight
Normal
All But The Hard Hearted Man Must Be Torn With Pity For This Pathetic Dilemma Of The Rich Man, Who Has To Keep The Poor Man Just Stout Enough To Do The Work And Just Thin Enough To Have To Do It.
Men
Rich
Pity
Every True Artist Does Feel, Consciously Or Unconsciously, That He Is Touching Transcendental Truths; That His Images Are Shadows Of Things Seen Through The Veil. In Other Words, The Natural Mystic Does Know That There Is Something There, Something Behind The Clouds Or Within The Trees; But He Believes That The Pursuit Of Beauty Is The Way To Find It; That Imagination Is A Sort Of Incantation That Can Call It Up.
Believe
Artist
Clouds
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.
Ignorance
Poetic
Dramatic
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.
Wise
Silly
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The Hands That Had Made The Sun And Stars Were Too Small To Reach The Huge Heads Of The Cattle. Upon This Paradox, We Might Almost Say Upon This Jest, All The Literature Of Our Faith Is Founded.
Stars
Hands
Literature
It Is Not Funny That Anything Else Should Fall Down; Only That A Man Should Fall Down... Why Do We Laugh? Because It Is A Grave Religious Matter: It Is The Fall Of Man. Only Man Can Be Absurd: For Only Man Can Be Dignified.
Funny
Religious
Fall
I Don't Need A Church To Tell Me I'm Wrong Where I Already Know I'm Wrong; I Need A Church To Tell Me I'm Wrong Where I Think I'm Right
Thinking
Church
Needs
No Man Can Break Any Of The Ten Commandments. He Can Only Break Himself Against Them.
Men
Break
Ten
He Can Only Get Away From Death By Continually Stepping Within An Inch Of It.
Death
Courage
Inches
Humor Can Get In Under The Door While Seriousness Is Still Fumbling At The Handle
Doors
Seriousness
Handle
The Whole Pleasure Of Marriage Is That It Is A Perpetual Crisis.
Love
Pleasure
Crisis
Once Remove The Old Arena Of Theological Quarrels, And You Will Throw Open The Whole World To The Most Horrible, The Most Hopeless, The Most Endless, The Most Truly Interminable Quarrels; The Untheological Quarrels.
World
Arena
Hopeless
Man Must Have Just Enough Faith In Himself To Have Adventures, And Just Enough Doubt Of Himself To Enjoy Them.
Adventure
Men
Doubt
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.
Military
Army
Men
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.
Friendship
Men
Two
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
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
There Are Many Definite Methods, Honest And Dishonest, Which Make People Rich; The Only Instinct I Know Of Which Does It Is That Instinct Which Theological Christianity Crudely Describes As The Sin Of Avarice.
People
Doe
Honest
A Man Cannot Deserve Adventures; He Cannot Earn Dragons And Hippogriffs.
Adventure
Men
Dragons
The Word 'good' Has Many Meanings. For Example, If A Man Were To Shoot His Grandmother At A Range Of Five Hundred Yards, I Should Call Him A Good Shot, But Not Necessarily A Good Man.
Grandmother
Men
Good Man
Before The Roman Came To Rye Or Out To Severn Strode, / The Rolling English Drunkard Made The Rolling English Road.
Rolling
Made
Drunkards
In The Struggle For Existence, It Is Only On Those Who Hang On For Ten Minutes After All Is Hopeless, That Hope Begins To Dawn.
Truth
Struggle
Dawn
Angels Can Fly Because They Take Themselves Lightly.
Inspirational
Inspiring
Peace
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
Individually, Men May Present A More Or Less Rational Appearance, Eating, Sleeping, And Scheming. But Humanity A A Whole Is Changeful, Mystical, Fickle, Delightful. Men Are Men, But Man Is A Woman.
Sleep
Men
Humanity
It Has Been Left To The Last Christians, Or Rather To The First Christians Fully Committed To Blaspheming And Denying Christianity, To Invent A New Kind Of Worship Of Sex, Which Is Not Even A Worship Of Life. It Has Been Left To The Very Latest Modernists To Proclaim An Erotic Religion Which At Once Exalts Lust And Forbids Fertility . . . The New Priests Abolish The Fatherhood And Keep The Feast - To Themselves.
Christian
Sex
Erotic
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.
Men
Laughing
Criticism
There Is The Great Lesson Of 'beauty And The Beast,' That A Thing Must Be Loved Before It Is Lovable.
Lessons
Fairytale
Fairy Tale
"the Universe Repeats Itself, With The Possible Exception Of History." Of All Earthly Studies History Is The Only One That Does Not Repeat Itself. ... Astronomy Repeats Itself; Botany Repeats Itself; Trigonometry Repeats Itself; Mechanics Repeats Itself; Compound Long Division Repeats Itself. Every Sum If Worked Out In The Same Way At Any Time Will Bring Out The Same Answer. ... A Great Many Moderns Say That History Is A Science; If So It Occupies A Solitary And Splendid Elevation Among The Sciences; It Is The Only Science The Conclusions Of Which Are Always Wrong.
Science
Long
History
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
The Great Majority Of People Will Go On Observing Forms That Cannot Be Explained; They Will Keep Christmas Day With Christmas Gifts And Christmas Benedictions; They Will Continue To Do It; And Some Day Suddenly Wake Up And Discover Why.
Christmas
People
Wake Up
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
Christianity Met The Mythological Search For Romance By Being A Story And The Philosophical Search For Truth By Being A True Story.
Philosophical
Romance
Stories
A Cosmic Philosophy Is Not Constructed To Fit A Man; A Cosmic Philosophy Is Constructed To Fit A Cosmos. A Man Can No More Possess A Private Religion Than He Can Possess A Private Sun And Moon.
Philosophy
Moon
Men
For The Mass Of Men The Idea Of Artistic Creation Can Only Be Expressed By An Idea Unpopular In Present Discussions - The Idea Of Property... Property Is Merely The Art Of The Democracy... One Would Think, To Hear People Talk, That The Rothschilds And The Rockefellers Were On The Side Of Property. But Obviously They Are The Enemies Of Property; Because They Are Enemies Of Their Own Limitations.
Art
Men
Thinking
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
If There Is One Fact We Really Can Prove, From The History That We Really Do Know, It Is That Despotism Can Be A Development, Often A Late Development And Very Often Indeed The End Of Societies That Have Been Highly Democratic. A Despotism May Almost Be Defined As A Tired Democracy. As Fatigue Falls On A Community, The Citizens Are Less Inclined For That Eternal Vigilance Which Has Truly Been Called The Price Of Liberty; And They Prefer To Arm Only One Single Sentinel To Watch The City While They Sleep.
Fall
Tired
Sleep
It Is The Test Of A Good Religion Whether You Can Joke About It.
Religion
Tests
Childlike Faith
Fable Is More Historical Than Fact, Because Fact Tells Us About One Man And Fable Tells Us About A Million Men.
Men
Historical
Literature
No Man Knows He Is Young While He Is Young.
Funny
Witty
Time
There Is No Obligation On Us To Be Richer, Or Busier, Or More Efficient, Or More Productive, Or More Progressive, Or Any Way Worldlier Or Wealthier, If It Does Not Make Us Happier.
Simple
Doe
Way
If You Argue With A Madman, It Is Extremely Probable That You Will Get The Worst Of It; For In Many Ways His Mind Moves All The Quicker For Not Being Delayed By The Things That Go With Good Judgment.
Moving
Christian Inspirational
Mind
The Old Religionist Cried Out For His God. The New Religionist Cries Out For Some God To Be His.
Spirituality
Cry
Cried
We Are All Ordinary People. And It's The Extraordinary People Who Know It.
People
Ordinary
Knows
Oh, Most Unhappy Man,' He Cried, 'try To Be Happy! You Have Red Hair Like Your Sister.' My Red Hair, Like Red Flames, Shall Burn Up The World,' Said Gregory.
Men
Hair
Flames
Where Does A Wise Man Hide A Leaf? In The Forest. But What Does He Do If There Is No Forest? He Grows A Forest To Hide It In.
Wise
Men
Doe
A Thing Constructed Can Only Be Loved After It Is Constructed; But A Thing Created Is Loved Before It Exists.
Creativity
Construction
Creative Thought
When Once You Have Got Hold Of A Vulgar Joke, You May Be Certain That You Have Got Hold Of A Subtle And Spiritual Idea.
Spiritual
Humor
Ideas
We Lose Our Bearings Entirely By Speaking Of The 'lower Classes' When We Mean Humanity Minus Ourselves.
Mean
Class
Humanity
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
For My Part, I Should Be Inclined To Suggest That The Chief Object Of Education Should Be To Restore Simplicity. If You Like To Put It So, The Chief Object Of Education Is Not To Learn Things; Nay, The Chief Object Of Education Is To Unlearn Things.
Simplicity
Should
Chiefs
My Brain And This World Don't Fit Each Other; And There's An End Of It.
Brain
World
Fit
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
Any One Thinking Of The Holy Child As Born In December Would Mean By It Exactly What We Mean By It; That Christ Is Not Merely A Summer Sun Of The Prosperous But A Winter Fire For The Unfortunate.
Christmas
Summer
Children
Men Can Construct A Science With Very Few Instruments, Or With Very Plain Instruments; But No One On Earth Could Construct A Science With Unreliable Instruments. A Man Might Work Out The Whole Of Mathematics With A Handful Of Pebbles, But Not With A Handful Of Clay Which Was Always Falling Apart Into New Fragments, And Falling Together Into New Combinations. A Man Might Measure Heaven And Earth With A Reed, But Not With A Growing Reed.
Fall
Men
Work Out
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
The Repetition In Nature May Not Be A Mere Recurrence; It May Be A Theatrical Encore.
May
Recurrence
Repetition
My Life Is Passed In Making Bad Jokes And Seeing Them Turn Into True Prophecies.
Life Is
Bad Jokes
Prophecy
The Wine They Drink In Paradise They Make In Haute Lorraine.
Wine
Paradise
Drink
Monotony Has Nothing To Do With A Place; Monotony, Either In Its Sensation Or Its Infliction, Is Simply The Quality Of A Person. There Are No Dreary Sights; There Are Only Dreary Sight Seers.
Sight
Bored
Quality
A Naked Moon Stood In A Naked Sky.
Moon
Sky
Naked
When The Chord Of Monotony Is Stretched To Its Tightest, It Breaks With The Sound Of A Song.
Song
Sound
Break
To Do Mohammed Justice, His Main Attack Was Against The Idolatries Of Asia. Only He Thought, Just As The Arians Did And Just As The Unitarians Do, That He Could Attack Them Better With A Greater Approximation To Plain Theism. What Distinguishes His Heresy From Anything Like An Arian Or Albigensian Heresy Is That, As It Sprang Up On The Borders Of Christendom, It Could Spread Outwards To A Barbaric World.
Justice
Islam
Borders
Sometimes He Even Embarrassed The Company By Phrases Suggesting That There Was Some Difference Between A Liberal And A Conservative.
Differences
Phrases
Conservative
Lord! What A Strange World In Which A Man Cannot Remain Unique Even By Taking The Trouble To Go Mad!
Unique
Men
Mad
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
Devil
Looks
Blessed Is He That Expecteth Nothing, For He Shall Be Gloriously Surprised.
Blessed
Expectations
A Man's Minor Actions And Arrangements Ought To Be Free, Flexible, Creative; The Things That Should Be Unchangeable Are His Principles, His Ideals. But With Us The Reverse Is True; Our Views Change Constantly; But Our Lunch Does Not Change. Now, I Should Like Men To Have Strong And Rooted Conceptions, But As For Their Lunch, Let Them Have It Sometimes In The Garden, Sometimes In Bed, Sometimes On The Roof, Sometimes In The Top Of A Tree. Let Them Argue From The Same First Principles, But Let Them Do It In A Bed, Or A Boat, Or A Balloon.
Strong
Men
Garden
...it Is Not Necessary To The Child To Awaken To The Sense Of The Strange And Humorous By Giving A Man A Luminous Nose...to The Child It Is Sufficiently Strange And Humorous To Have A Nose At All.
Children
Humorous
Men
But There Is Good News Yet To Hear And Fine Things To Be Seen Before We Go To Paradise By Way Of Kensal Green.
News
Paradise
Green
It's Not The World That's Got So Much Worse But The News Coverage That's Got So Much Better.
Media
World
News
But A Somewhat More Liberal And Sympathetic Examination Of Mankind Will Convince Us That The Cross Is Even Older Than The Gibbet, That Voluntary Suffering Was Before And Independent Of Compulsory; And In Short That In Most Important Matters A Man Has Always Been Free To Ruin Himself If He Chose.
Independent
Men
Convince Us
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
Wherever There Is Animal Worship, There Is Human Sacrifice.
Sacrifice
Animal
Worship
And Pray Where In Earth Or Heaven Are There Prudent Marriages-might As Well Talk About Prudent Suicides.
Suicide
Heaven
Earth
If Man Is Not The Image Of God, Then He Is A Disease Of The Dust.
Men
Dust
Disease
The Only Defensible War Is A War Of Defense.
Peace
War
Defense
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
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
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
Modern Man Is Educated To Understand Foreign Languages And Misunderstand Foreigners.
Men
Language
Modern
Of Being Strong And Brave. The Strong Can Not Be Brave. Only The Weak Can Be Brave; And Yet Again, In Practice, Only Those Who Can Be Brave Can Be Trusted, In Time Of Doubt, To Be Strong.
Inspirational
Strong
Practice
I Still Think Sincere Pessimism The Unpardonable Sin.
Thinking
Sin
Pessimism
Art Is The Signature Of Man.
Art
Men
Signatures
There Is Something To Be Said For Every Error; But, Whatever May Be Said For It, The Most Important Thing To Be Said About It Is That It Is Erroneous.
Mistake
Errors
Important
To Be Born Into This Earth Is To Be Born Into Uncongenial Surroundings, Hence To Be Born Into A Romance.
Romance
Earth
Born
Romance Is The Combination Of Something That Is Strange With Something That Is Secure.
Romance
Insecurity
Strange
Theology Is Simply That Part Of Religion That Requires Brains.
Brain
Theology
The Mind Moves By Instincts, Associations And Premonitions And Not By Fixed Dates Or Completed Processes. Action And Reaction Will Occur Simultaneously: Or The Cause Actually Be Found After The Effect. Errors Will Be Resisted Before They Have Been Properly Promulgated: Notions Will Be First Defined Long After They Are Dead.
Moving
Errors
Long
Thinking In Isolation And With Pride Ends In Being An Idiot.
Pride
Thinking
Idiot
The Cross Cannot Be Defeated For It Is Defeat.
Defeat
Defeated
Crosses
No Animal Ever Invented Anything As Bad As Drunkenness - Or So Good As Drink.
Drinking
Beer
Animal
Oscar Wilde Said That Sunsets Were Not Valued Because We Could Not Pay For Sunsets. But Oscar Wilde Was Wrong; We Can Pay For Sunsets. We Can Pay For Them By Not Being Oscar Wilde.
Sunset
Oscars
Pay
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 Truth Is That It Is Our Attitude Towards Children That Is Right, And Our Attitude Towards Grown-up People That Is Wrong.
Children
Attitude
People
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
It Is Not Only Possible To Say A Great Deal In Praise Of Play; It Is Really Possible To Say The Highest Things In Praise Of It. It Might Reasonably Be Maintained That The True Object Of All Human Life Is Play. Earth Is A Task Garden; Heaven Is A Playground.
Garden
Play
Heaven
A Man Was Meant To Be Doubtful About Himself, But Undoubting About The Truth; This Has Been Reversed. Nowadays The Part Of A Man That A Man Does Assert Is Exactly The Part He Ought Not To Assert - Himself. The Part He Doubts Is Exactly The Part He Ought Not To Doubt - The Divine Reason.
Men
Doubt
Doe
The Point Is Not That This World Is Too Sad To Love Or Too Glad Not To Love; The Point Is That When You Do Love A Thing, Its Gladness Is A Reason For Loving It, And Its Sadness A Reason For Loving It More.
Sadness
World
Reason
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
An Almost Unnatural Vigilance Is Really Required Of The Citizen Because Of The Horrible Rapidity With Which Human Institutions Grow Old.
Citizens
Institutions
Horrible
A Man Was Meant To Be Doubtful About Himself, But Undoubting About The Truth; This Has Been Exactly Reversed.
Men
Were Meant To Be
Doubtful
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
There Are Some Desires That Are Not Desirable.
Desire
Morality
Desirable
The Cosmos Is About The Smallest Hole That A Man Can Hide His Head In.
Men
Cosmos
Literature
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
Civilization Has Run On Ahead Of The Soul Of Man, And Is Producing Faster Than He Can Think And Give Thanks.
Running
Men
Thinking
Sir Hiram Maxim Is A Genuine And Typical Example Of The Man Of Science, Romantic, Excitable, Full Of Real But Somewhat Obvious Poetry, A Little Hazy In Logic And Philosophy, But Full Of Hearty Enthusiasm And An Honorable Simplicity. He Is, As He Expresses It, "an Old And Trained Engineer," And Is Like All Of The Old And Trained Engineers I Have Happened To Come Across, A Man Who Indemnifies Himself For The Superhuman Or Inhuman Concentration Required For Physical Science By A Vague And Dangerous Romanticism About Everything Else.
Philosophy
Real
Science
The Aesthete Aims At Harmony Rather Than Beauty. If His Hair Does Not Match The Mauve Sunset Against Which He Is Standing, He Hurriedly Dyes His Hair Another Shade Of Mauve. If His Wife Does Not Go With The Wall-paper, He Gets A Divorce.
Wall
Sunset
Divorce
The Man Who Kills A Man Kills A Man. The Man Who Kills Himself Kills All Men. As Far As He Is Concerned, He Wipes Out The World.
Suicide
Suicidal
Men
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
To Downgrade The Human Mind Is Bad Theology.
Mind
Theology
Humans
The Men Who Really Believe In Themselves Are All In Lunatic Asylums.
Military
Believe
Army
God Is Not A Symbol Of Goodness; Goodness Is A Symbol Of God
Goodness
Symbols
Imagination Does Not Breed Insanity. Exactly What Does Breed Insanity Is Reason. Poets Do Not Go Mad, But Chess Players Do.
Player
Mad
Imagination
I Would Look At The First Chapter Of Any New Novel As A Final Test Of Its Merits. If There Was A Murdered Man Under The Sofa In The First Chapter, I Read The Story. If There Was No Murdered Man Under The Sofa In The First Chapter, I Dismissed The Story As Tea-table Twaddle, Which It Often Really Was.
Men
Tea
Finals
There Is Nothing The Matter With Americans Except Their Ideals. The Real American Is All Right; It Is The Ideal American Who Is All Wrong.
Funny
Real
Humorous
Men Reform A Thing By Removing The Reality From It, And Then Do Not Know What To Do With The Unreality That Is Left.
Reality
Men
Progress
The Books That Influence The World Are Those That It Has Not Read.
Book
World
Influence
Atheism Is Indeed The Most Daring Of All Dogmas . . . For It Is The Assertion Of A Universal Negative.
Atheist
Atheism
Negative
English Experience Indicates That When The Two Great Political Parties Agree About Something It Is Generally Wrong.
Party
Government
Two
Artistic Temperament Is The Disease That Afflicts Amateurs.
Writing
Literature
Disease
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
If The Apple Hit Newton’s Nose, Newton’s Nose Hit The Apple.
Apples
Noses
Newton
Every Man Speaks Of Public Opinion, And Means By Public Opinion, Public Opinion Minus His Opinion.
Mean
Men
Public Opinion
Because Our Expression Is Imperfect We Need Friendship To Fill Up The Imperfections.
Friendship
Expression
Imperfection
Religious And Philosophical Beliefs Are, Indeed, As Dangerous As Fire, And Nothing Can Take From Them That Beauty Of Danger. But There Is Only One Way Of Really Guarding Ourselves Against The Excessive Danger Of Them, And That Is To Be Steeped In Philosophy And Soaked In Religion.
Religious
Philosophy
Philosophical
It Is Still Bad Taste To Be An Avowed Atheist. But Now It Is Equally Bad Taste To Be An Avowed Christian.
Christian
Atheist
Taste
Most Americans Are Born Drunk, And Really Require A Little Wine Or Beer To Sober Them.
Wine
Beer
Drunk
It Is The Mark Of Our Whole Modern History That The Masses Are Kept Quiet With A Fight. They Are Kept Quiet By The Fight Because It Is A Sham-fight; Thus Most Of Us Know By This Time That The Party System Has Been Popular Only In The Sense That A Football Match Is Popular.
Football
Party
Fighting
Only Friendliness Produces Friendship. And We Must Look Far Deeper Into The Soul Of Man For The Thing That Produces Friendliness.
Friendship
Men
Soul
Man Seems To Be Capable Of Great Virtues But Not Of Small Virtues; Capable Of Defying His Torturer But Not Of Keeping His Temper.
Men
Literature
Virtue
A Man Must Be Prepared Not Only To Be A Martyr, But To Be A Fool. It Is Absurd To Say That A Man Is Ready To Toil And Die For His Convictions If He Is Not Even Ready To Wear A Wreathe Around His Head For Them.
Men
Toil
Fool
Man Does Not Live By Soap Alone; And Hygiene, Or Even Health, Is Not Much Good Unless You Can Take A Healthy View Of It Or, Better Still, Feel A Healthy Indifference To It.
Health
Men
Views
I Am Concerned With A Certain Way Of Looking At Life, Which Was Created In Me By The Fairy Tales, But Has Since Been Meekly Ratified By The Mere Facts.
Way
Facts
Fairy Tale
The Moderns Do Not Realize Modernity.
Realizing
Modernity
There Is Not Really Any Courage At All In Attacking Hoary Or Antiquated Things, Any More Than In Offering To Fight One's Grandmother. The Really Courageous Man Is He Who Defies Tyrannies Young As The Morning And Superstitions Fresh As The First Flowers. The Only True Free-thinker Is He Whose Intellect Is As Much Free From The Future As From The Past.
Courage
Morning
Flower
It Is Largely Because The Free-thinkers, As A School, Have Hardly Made Up Their Minds Whether They Want To Be More Optimist Or More Pessimist Than Christianity That Their Small But Sincere Movement Has Failed.
School
Mind
Movement
For Religion All Men Are Equal, As All Pennies Are Equal, Because The Only Value Of Any Of Them Is That They Bear The Image Of The King.
Kings
Equality
Men
The Comedy Of Man Survives The Tragedy Of Man.
Men
Catholic
Tragedy
Happy Is He Who Still Loves Something He Loved In The Nursery: He Has Not Been Broken In Two By Time; He Is Not Two Men, But One, And He Has Saved Not Only His Soul But His Life.
Happiness
Men
Two
Saint George He Was For England, And Before He Killed The Dragon He Drank A Pint Of English Ale Out Of An English Flagon.
Beer
Dragons
Saint George
We Must Be Clear About What We Want To Paint. This Adds A Further Principle To Our Previous List Of Principles. We Have Said We Must Be Fond Of This World, Even In Order To Change It.
Order
Society
World
For When We Cease To Worship God, We Do Not Worship Nothing, We Worship Anything.
Atheist
Religion
Atheism
The Catholic Church Is Like A Thick Steak, A Glass Of Red Wine, And A Good Cigar.
Wine
Glasses
Catholic
I Have No Right To Think For Myself. I Have No Right To Think At All.
Thinking
Plato Was Only A Bernard Shaw Who Unfortunately Made His Jokes In Greek.
Plato
Greek
Bernard Shaw
Once I Planned To Write A Book Of Poems Entirely About The Things In My Pocket. But I Found It Would Be Too Long; And The Age Of The Great Epics Is Past.
Birthday
Book
Writing
It Is The First Law Of Practical Courage. To Be In The Weakest Camp Is To Be In The Strongest School.
Courage
School
Law
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
Very Few Reputations Are Gained By Unsullied Virtue.
Reputation
Virtue
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