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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.
-Gilbert K. Chesterton
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In Truth, There Are

Gilbert K. Chesterton
...
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.

Understanding the Quote: "in truth, there are only two kinds of people; those who accept..."

This quote by Gilbert K. Chesterton reflects deeply on the theme of two. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Two, People, Dogma, 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 two and people. 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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Two
People
Dogma
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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
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When A Politician Is In Opposition He Is An Expert On The Means To Some End; And When He Is In Office He Is An Expert On The Obstacles To It.
Mean
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Altruists, With Thin, Weak Voices, Denounce Christ As An Egoist. Egoists (with Even Thinner And Weaker Voices) Denounce Him As An Altruist.
Voice
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We Cannot Fling Ourselves Into The Blank Future; We Can Only Call Up Images From The Past. This Being So, The Important Principle Follows, That How Many Images We Have Largely Depends On How Much Past We Have.
Past
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Realism Is Simply Romanticism That Has Lost Its Reason...that Is Its Reason For Existing.
Reason
Lost
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Though I Believe In Liberalism, I Find It Difficult To Believe In Liberals.
Believe
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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
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
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In Truth The Church Is Too Unique To Prove Herself Unique. For Most Popular And Easy Proof Is By Parallel; And Here There Is No Parallel.
Unique
Church
Easy
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.
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Book
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We Actually Love Ourselves More Than We Love Joy.
Joy
The Average Businessman Began To Be Agnostic, Not So Much Because He Did Not Know Where He Was, As Because He Wanted To Forget. Many Of The Rich Took To Scepticism Exactly As The Poor Took To Drink; Because It Was A Way Out.
Average
Way
Agnostic
I Have Little Doubt That When St. George Had Killed The Dragon He Was Heartily Afraid Of The Princess.
Love
Princess
Dragons
Political Economy Means That Everybody Except Politicians Must Be Economical.
Mean
Political
Politician
Great Truths Can Only Be Forgotten And Can Never Be Falsified.
Forgotten
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
Materialists And Madmen Never Have Doubts.
Doubt
Madmen
Causation
In Real Life The People Who Are Most Bigoted Are The People Who Have No Convictions At All.
Racism
People
Conviction
It May Be A Mere Patriotic Bias, Though I Do Not Think So, But It Seems To Me That The English Aristocracy Is Not Only The Type, But Is The Crown And Flower Of All Actual Aristocracies; It Has All The Oligarchical Virtues As Well As All The Defects. It Is Casual, It Is Kind, It Is Courageous In Obvious Matters; But It Has One Great Merit That Overlaps Even These. The Great And Very Obvious Merit Of The English Aristocracy Is That Nobody Could Possibly Take It Seriously.
Flower
Patriotic
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Playing As Children Means Playing Is The Most Serious Thing In The World.
Baby
Children
Mean
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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Ideas
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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While Once It Was The Rank And File That Cheered With All The Partisan Passions At Their Heights, Today It Is The Party Leaders Who Are Cheering Themselves; And All By Themselves. The Mob That Is Their Audience Is In One Vast Universal Trance, Thinking About Something Else.
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Cheer
Party
It Was Not The House That Grew Dull, But I That Grew Dull In It. My Wife Was Better Than All Women, And Yet I Could Not Feel It.
Wife
House
Dull
Everyone Seems To Assume That The Unscrupulous Parts Of Journalism Will Be The Frivolous Or Jocular Parts. This Is Against All Ethical Experience. Jokes Are Generally Honest. Complete Solemnity Is Almost Always Dishonest. The Writer Of The Snippet Merely Refers To A Frivolous And Fugitive Fact In A Frivolous And Fugitive Way. The Writer Of The Leading Article Has To Write About A Fact He Has Known For 20 Minutes As Though He Has Studied It For 20 Years.
Writing
Years
Way
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
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We Are Like The Penny, Because We Have The Image Of The King Stamped On Us, The Divine King.
Kings
Pennies
Divine
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
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You'll Never Find The Solution If You Don't See The Problem.
Problem
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Every True Artist Feels That He Is Touching Transcendental Truths; That His Images Are Shadows Of Things Seen Through The Veil.
Artist
Touching
Shadow
Before The Roman Came To Rye Or Out To Severn Strode, / The Rolling English Drunkard Made The Rolling English Road.
Rolling
Made
Drunkards
The Center Of Every Man's Existence Is A Dream.
Dream
Men
Anticipation
Excuse Me If I Enjoy Myself Rather Obviously! I Don't Often Have The Luck To Have A Dream Like This. It Is New To Me For A Nightmare To Lead Me To A Lobster. It Is Commonly The Other Way.
Dream
Luck
Lobster
In The End It Will Not Matter To Us Whether We Wrote Well Or Ill; Whether We Fought With Flails Or Reeds. It Will Matter To Us Greatly On What Side We Fought.
Matter
Sides
Reeds
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.
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Church
Earnest Freethinkers Need Not Worry Themselves So Much About The Persecutions Of The Past. Before The Liberal Idea Is Dead Or Triumphant We Shall See Wars And Persecutions The Like Of Which The World Has Never Seen.
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Boys Like Romantic [fairy] Tales; But Babies Like Realistic Tales - Because They Find Them Romantic...this Proves That Even Nursery Tales Only Echo An Almost Prenatal Leap Of Interest And Amazement. These Tales Say That Apples Were Golden Only To Refresh The Forgotten Moment When We Found That They Were Green. They Make Rivers Run With Wine Only To Make Us Remember, For One Wild Moment, That They Run With Water.
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The Madman Is The Man Who Has Lost Everything Except His Reason.
Men
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I Do Not Know Much About Mohammed Or Mohammedanism. I Do Not Take The Koran To Bed With Me Every Night. But, If I Did On Some One Particular Night, There Is One Sense At Least In Which I Know What I Should Not Find There. I Apprehend That I Should Not Find The Work Abounding In Strong Encouragements To The Worship Of Idols; That The Praises Of Polytheism Would Not Be Loudly Sung; That The Character Of Mohammed Would Not Be Subjected To Anything Resembling Hatred And Derision; And That The Great Modern Doctrine Of The Unimportance Of Religion Would Not Be Needlessly Emphasised.
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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
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
Why Be Something To Everybody When You Can Be Everything To Somebody?
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The Cause Which Is Blocking All Progress Today Is The Subtle Scepticism Which Whispers In A Million Ears That Things Are Not Good Enough To Be Worth Improving. If The World Is Good We Are Revolutionaries, If The World Is Evil We Must Be Conservatives. These Essays, Futile As They Are Considered As Serious Literature, Are Yet Ethically Sincere, Since They Seek To Remind Men That Things Must Be Loved First And Improved Afterwards.
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Humor Can Get In Under The Door While Seriousness Is Still Fumbling At The Handle
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Seriousness
Handle
It Is One Thing To Describe An Interview With A Gorgon Or A Griffin, A Creature Who Does Not Exist. It Is Another Thing To Discover That The Rhinoceros Does Exist And Then Take Pleasure In The Fact That He Looks As If He Didn't.
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Looks
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Fairy Tales Are More Than True.
Dragons
Fairy Stories
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Man Seems To Be Capable Of Great Virtues But Not Of Small Virtues; Capable Of Defying His Torturer But Not Of Keeping His Temper.
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Virtue Is Not The Absence Of Vices Or The Avoidance Of Moral Dangers; Virtue Is A Vivid And Separate Thing, Like Pain Or A Particular Smell.
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The Academic Mind Reflects Infinity, And Is Full Of Light By The Simple Process Of Being Shallow And Standing Still.
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Light
Mind
In All Legends Men Have Thought Of Women As Sublime Separately But Horrible In A Herd.
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Drink Because You Are Happy, But Never Because You Are Miserable. Never Drink When You Are Wretched Without It, Or You Will Be Like The Grey-faced Gin-drinker In The Slum; But Drink When You Would Be Happy Without It, And You Will Be Like The Laughing Peasant Of Italy. Never Drink Because You Need It, For This Is Rational Drinking, And The Way To Death And Hell. But Drink Because You Do Not Need It, For This Is Irrational Drinking, And The Ancient Health Of The World.
Drinking
Laughing
Would Be
The Theory Of Free Speech, That Truth Is So Much Larger And Stranger And More Many-sided Than We Know Of, That It Is Very Much Better At All Costs To Hear Everyone's Account Of It, Is A Theory Which Has Been Justified On The Whole By Experiment, But Which Remains A Very Daring And Even A Very Surprising Theory. It Is Really One Of The Great Discoveries Of The Modern Time.
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Discovery
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It Is Terrible To Contemplate How Few Politicians Are Hanged.
Political
Politician
Terrible
To Be Clever Enough To Get All That Money, One Must Be Stupid Enough To Want It.
Funny
Money
Clever
A Modern Vegetarian Is Also A Teetotaler, Yet There Is No Obvious Connection Between Consuming Vegetables And Not Consuming Fermented Vegetables. A Drunkard, When Lifted Laboriously Out Of The Gutter, Might Well Be Heard Huskily To Plead That He Had Fallen There Through Excessive Devotion To A Vegetable Diet.
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One Can Sometimes Do Good By Being The Right Person In The Wrong Place.
Sometimes
Persons
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The Test Of Happiness Is Gratitude.
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The Byzantines Hammered Away At Their Hard And Orthodox Symbols, Because They Could Not Be In A Mood To Believe That Men Could Take A Hint. The Moderns Drag Out Into Lengths And Reels Of Extravagance Their New Orthodoxy Of Being Unorthodox, Because They Also Cannot Give A Hint -- Or Take A Hint. Yet All Perfect And Well-poised Art Is Really A Hint.
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Men
I Still Think Sincere Pessimism The Unpardonable Sin.
Thinking
Sin
Pessimism
A Man Must Be Orthodox Upon Most Things, Or He Will Never Even Have Time To Preach His Own Heresy.
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Men
Orthodox
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
It Is Generally The Man Who Is Not Ready To Argue, Who Is Ready To Sneer.
Men
Arguing
Apologetic
To Be Simple Is The Best Thing In The World; To Be Modest Is The Next Best Thing. I Am Not Sure About Being Quiet.
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Simplicity
World
When Learned Men Begin To Use Their Reason, Then I Generally Discover That They Haven't Got Any.
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Use
Reason
Fairy Tales Do Not Tell Children The Dragons Exist. Children Already Know That Dragons Exist. Fairy Tales Tell Children The Dragons Can Be Killed.
Hope
Children
Dragons
The Devil's Walking Parody; On All Four-footed Things.
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Devil
Four
It Is Much Easier To Write A Good Times Leading Article Than A Good Joke In Punch.
Writing
Good Times
Easier
A Dead Thing Goes With The Stream, But Only A Living Thing Can Go Against It.
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Moral
Sanity
Fable Is More Historical Than Fact, Because Fact Tells Us About One Man And Fable Tells Us About A Million Men.
Men
Historical
Literature
Love Is Not Blind; That Is The Last Thing That It Is. Love Is Bound; And The More It Is Bound The Less It Is Blind.
Love Is
Lasts
Blind
When We Really Worship Anything, We Love Not Only Its Clearness But Its Obscurity. We Exult In Its Very Invisibility.
Obscurity
Literature
Invisibility
I Like The Americans For A Great Many Reasons. I Like Them Because Even The Modern Thing Called Industrialism Has Not Entirely Destroyed In Them The Very Ancient Thing Called Democracy. I Like Them Because They Have A Respect For Work Which Really Curbs The Human Tendency To Snobbishness.
America
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All Good Men Are International. Nearly All Bad Men Are Cosmopolitan. If We Are To Be International We Must Be National.
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Internationalism
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!
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Insult
Said
The Real Great Man Is The Man Who Makes Every Man Feel Great.
Real
Men
Greatness
If A Man Only Likes Victory He Must Always Come Late For The Battle.
Men
Victory
Battle
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
And Pray Where In Earth Or Heaven Are There Prudent Marriages-might As Well Talk About Prudent Suicides.
Suicide
Heaven
Earth
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
Whenever You Remove Any Fence, Always Pause Long Enough To Ask Why It Was Put There In The First Place.
Long
Firsts
Enough
There Is But An Inch Of Difference Between A Cushioned Chamber And A Padded Cell.
Cells
Differences
Inches
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
Instead Of The Machine Being A Giant To Which The Man Is The Pygmy, We Must At Last Reverse The Proportions Until Man Is A Giant To Whom The Machine Is The Toy.
Men
Giants
Machines
Adventure Is The Champagne Of Life, But I Prefer My Champagne And My Adventures Dry.
Adventure
Dry
Champagne
A Nation Is Not Going Mad When It Does Extravagant Things, So Long As It Does Them In An Extravagant Spirit. But Whenever We See Things Done Wildly, But Taken Tamely, Then The State Is Growing Insane.
Taken
Long
Mad
Vigorous Organisms Talk Not About Their Processes, But About Their Aims.
Process
Aim
Vigorous
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
[v]ariety Of Climate Should Always Go With Stability Of Abode.... An Englishman’s House Is Not Only His Castle; It Is His Fairy Castle. Clouds And Colours Of Every Varied Dawn And Eve Are Perpetually Touching And Turning It From Clay To Gold, Or From Gold To Ivory. There Is A Line Of Woodland Beyond A Corner Of My Garden Which Is Literally Different On Every One Of The Three Hundred And Sixty-five Days. Sometimes It Seems As Near As A Hedge, And Sometimes As Far As A Faint And Fiery Evening Cloud.
Garden
Weather
Ivory
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
A Man Was Meant To Be Doubtful About Himself, But Undoubting About The Truth; This Has Been Exactly Reversed.
Men
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Doubtful
Science Only Means Knowledge; And For [greek] Ancients It Did Only Mean Knowledge. Thus The Favorite Science Of The Greeks Was Astronomy, Because It Was As Abstract As Algebra. ... We May Say That The Great Greek Ideal Was To Have No Use For Useful Things. The Slave Was He Who Learned Useful Things; The Freeman Was He Who Learned Useless Things. This Still Remains The Ideal Of Many Noble Men Of Science, In The Sense They Do Desire Truth As The Great Greeks Desired It; And Their Attitude Is An External Protest Against Vulgarity Of Utilitarianism.
Attitude
Learning
Mean
There Are Those Who Hate Christianity And Call Their Hatred An All-embracing Love For All Religions.
Hate
If There Is A God
Christian Inspirational
This Is The Age In Which Thin And Theoretic Minorities Can Cover And Conquer Unconscious And Untheoretic Majorities.
Progress
Age
Minorities
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
We Fear Men So Much, Because We Fear God So Little. One Fear Cures Another. When Man's Terror Scares You, Turn Your Thoughts To The Wrath Of God.
Fear
Blessing
Men
To Be Simple Is The Best Thing In The World.
Simple
Sweat
Simplicity
People Seem To Fight About Things Very Unsuitable For Fighting. They Make A Frightful Noise In Support Of Very Quiet Things. They Knock Each Other About In The Name Of Very Fragile Things.
Anger
Fighting
Names
The Church Is A House With A Hundred Gates: And No Two Men Enter At Exactly The Same Angle
Men
Two
House
The Museum Is Not Meant Either For The Wanderer To See By Accident Or For The Pilgrim To See With Awe. It Is Meant For The Mere Slave Of A Routine Of Self- Education To Stuff Himself With Every Sort Of Incongruous Intellectual Food In One Indigestible Meal.
Museums
Self
Intellectual
Original Sin Is The Only Doctrine That's Been Empirically Validated By 2,000 Years Of Human History.
Years
Doctrine
Sin
Somehow One Must Love The World Without Being Worldly.
World
Worldly
I Am At One With My Duality.
Duality
A Great City Is The Place To Escape The True Drama Of Provincial Life, And Find Solace In Fantasy.
Drama
Cities
Fantasy
...the Primary Paradox That Man Is Superior To All The Things Around Him And Yet Is At Their Mercy.
Men
Mercy
Paradox
Modern Intelligence Won't Accept Anything On Authority. But It Will Accept Anything Without Authority.
Modern
Authority
Accepting
Coincidence Is A Spiritual Pun.
Spiritual
Definitions
Coincidence
Impartiality Is A Pompous Name For Indifference, Which Is An Elegant Name For Ignorance.
Wisdom
Fun
Ignorance
Democracy Means Government By The Uneducated, While Aristocracy Means Government By The Badly Educated.
Mean
Government
Political
The Best Way That A Man Could Test His Readiness To Encounter The Common Variety Of Mankind Would Be To Climb Down A Chimney Into Any House At Random, And Get On As Well As Possible With The People Inside. And That Is Essentially What Each One Of Us Did On The Day That He Was Born.
Men
People
House
To Have A Right To Do A Thing Is Not At All The Same As To Be Right In Doing It.
Orthodoxy
Morality
Action
What People Call Impartiality May Simply Mean Indifference, And What People Call Partiality May Simply Mean Mental Activity.
Mean
People
Literature
I Have Argued With Him On Almost Every Subject In The World, And We Have Always Been On Opposite Sides, Without Affectation Or Animosity... It Is Necessary To Disagree With Him As Much As I Do, In Order To Admire Him As I Do; And I Am Proud Of Him As A Foe Even More Than As A Friend.
Order
Opposites
World
No Man Knows He Is Young While He Is Young.
Funny
Witty
Time
Nothing Taken For Granted; Everything Received With Gratitude; Everything Passed On With Grace.
Christmas
Gratitude
Taken
The Doctrine Of Human Equality Reposes On This: That There Is No Man Really Clever Who Has Not Found That He Is Stupid.
Clever
Stupid
Men
Either Criticism Is No Good At All (a Very Defensible Position) Or Else Criticism Means Saying About An Author The Very Things That Would Have Made Him Jump Out Of His Boots.
Mean
Criticism
Boots
Progress Is The Mother Of Problems.
Mother
Progress
Problem
It Is Very Good For A Man To Talk About What He Does Not Understand; As Long As He Understands That He Does Not Understand It.
Men
Long
Doe
A Man Imagines A Happy Marriage As A Marriage Of Love; Even If He Makes Fun Of Marriages That Are Without Love, Or Feels Sorry For Lovers Who Are Without Marriage.
Love
Fun
Sorry
Too Much Capitalism Does Not Mean Too Many Capitalists, But Too Few Capitalists.
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Doe
Too Much
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
The Materialist Is Sure That History Has Been Simply And Solely A Chain Of Causation, Just As The [lunatic] Is Quite Sure That He Is Simply And Solely A Chicken. Materialists And Madmen Never Have Doubts.
Doubt
Chickens
Chains
If The Barricades Went Up In Our Streets And The Poor Became Masters, I Think The Priests Would Escape, I Fear The Gentlemen Would; But I Believe The Gutters Would Simply Be Running With The Blood Of Philanthropists.
Running
Fear
Believe
The One Perfectly Divine Thing, The One Glimpse Of God's Paradise Given On Earth, Is To Fight A Losing Battle - And Not Lose It.
Fighting
Battle
Glimpse
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
They Have Invented A Phrase, A Phrase That Is A Black And White Contradiction In Two Words - 'free-love' - As If A Lover Ever Had Been, Or Ever Could Be, Free.
Black And White
Two
Phrases
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
Truth, Of Course, Must Of Necessity Be Stranger Than Fiction, For We Have Made Fiction To Suit Ourselves.
Truth
Fiction
Suits
Unless A Man Becomes The Enemy Of An Evil, He Will Not Even Become Its Slave But Rather Its Champion.
Men
Evil
Champion
Thieves Respect Property. They Merely Wish The Property To Become Their Property That They May More Perfectly Respect It.
Funny
Respect
Humor
America Has A Genius For The Encouragement Of Fame.
Encouragement
America
Genius
One Must Somehow Find A Way Of Loving The World Without Trusting It; Somehow One Must Love The World Without Being Worldly.
Love
World
Way
What Life And Death May Be To A Turkey Is Not My Business; But The Soul Of Scrooge And The Body Of Cratchit Are My Business.
Christmas
Business
Turkeys
Pride Juggles With Her Toppling Towers, They Strike The Sun And Cease, But The Firm Feet Of Humility They Grip The Ground Like Trees.
Humility
Pride
Feet
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
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
The Mass Is Not Only About God Becoming Man, It Is About Man Becoming More Himself.
Men
Becoming
Mass
Wherever There Is Animal Worship, There Is Human Sacrifice.
Sacrifice
Animal
Worship
There Are No Uninteresting Things, Only Uninterested People.
I Hate You
Ignorance
People
I Have No Right To Think For Myself. I Have No Right To Think At All.
Thinking
The Man Who Lives In A Small Community Lives In A Much Larger World... The Reason Is Obvious. In A Large Community We Can Choose Our Companions. In A Small Community Our Companions Are Chosen For Us.
Men
Community
World
If A Man Called Christmas Day A Mere Hypocritical Excuse For Drunkenness And Gluttony, That Would Be False, But It Would Have A Fact Hidden In It Somewhere. But When Bernard Shaw Says The Christmas Day Is Only A Conspiracy Kept Up By Poulterers And Wine Merchants From Strictly Business Motives, Then He Says Something Which Is Not So Much False As Startling And Arrestingly Foolish. He Might As Well Say That The Two Sexes Were Invented By Jewellers Who Wanted To Sell Wedding Rings.
Christmas
Sex
Wine
With All That We Hear Of American Hustle And Hurry, It Is Rather Strange That Americans Seem To Like To Linger On Longer Words.
Hustle
Culture
Strange
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
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
The Modern Materialists Are Not Permitted To Doubt; They Are Forbidden To Believe.
Believe
Doubt
Modern
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
No Man Can Break Any Of The Ten Commandments. He Can Only Break Himself Against Them.
Men
Break
Ten
It Is As Healthy To Enjoy Sentiment As To Enjoy Jam.
Healthy
Jam
Sentimental
A Good Joke Is The Closest Thing We Have To Divine Revelation.
Divine Revelation
Revelations
Theologian
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
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
We Are Christians And Catholics Not Because We Worship A Key, But Because We Have Passed A Door; And Felt The Wind That Is The Trumpet Of Liberty Blow Over The Land Of The Living.
Christian
Blow
Keys
The Scientific Facts, Which Were Supposed To Contradict The Faith In The Nineteenth Century, Are Nearly All Of Them Regarded As Unscientific Fictions In The Twentieth Century.
Fiction
Facts
Century
The First Two Facts Which A Healthy Boy Or Girl Feels About Sex Are These: First That It Is Beautiful And Then That It Is Dangerous.
Love
Beautiful
Girl
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
Honour Is A Luxury For Aristocrats, But It Is A Necessity For Hall-porters.
Luxury
Honor
Halls
I Believe In Preaching To The Converted; For I Have Generally Found That The Converted Do Not Understand Their Own Religion.
Believe
Found
Preaching
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 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
Aristocracy: Government By The Badly Educated.
Government
Aristocracy
Educated
The Evolutionists Seem To Know Everything About The Missing Link Except The Fact That It Is Missing.
Missing
Links
Facts
The Christian Pities Men Because They Are Dying, And The Buddhist Pities Them Because They Are Living. The Christian Is Sorry For What Damages The Life Of A Man; But The Buddhist Is Sorry For Him Because He Is Alive.
Christian
Buddhist
Sorry
One May Understand The Cosmos, But Never The Ego; The Self Is More Distant Than Any Star.
Stars
Knowledge
Acceptance
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
One Of The Great Disadvantages Of Hurry Is That It Takes Such A Long Time.
Life
Time
Hate
We Can’t Turn Life Into A Pleasure. But We Can Choose Such Pleasures As Are Worthy Of Us And Our Immortal Souls.
Soul
Pleasure
Worthy
There Are Two Kinds Of People In The World, The Conscious Dogmatists And The Unconscious Dogmatists. I Have Always Found Myself That The Unconscious Dogmatists Were By Far The Most Dogmatic.
Two
People
World
I Would Give A Woman Not More Rights, But More Privileges. Instead Of Sending Her To Seek Such Freedom As Notoriously Prevails In Banks And Factories, I Would Design Specially A House In Which She Can Be Free.
Rights
Giving
House
Unfortunately, 19th-century Scientists Were Just As Ready To Jump To The Conclusion That Any Guess About Nature Was An Obvious Fact, As Were 17th-century Sectarians To Jump To The Conclusion That Any Guess About Scripture Was The Obvious Explanation . . . . And This Clumsy Collision Of Two Very Impatient Forms Of Ignorance Was Known As The Quarrel Of Science And Religion.
Ignorance
Two
Scripture
Right Is Right Even If Nobody Does It. Wrong Is Wrong Even If Everybody Is Wrong About It.
Doe
Moral
Sanity
A Man Who Says That No Patriot Should Attack The Boer War Until It Is Over Is Not Worth Answering Intelligently; He Is Saying That No Good Son Should Warn His Mother Off A Cliff Until She Has Fallen Over It.
Mother
Peace
War
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
They Say Travel Broadens The Mind, But You Must Have The Mind.
Travel
Mind
I Left The Fairy Tales Lying On The Floor Of The Nursery, And I Have Not Found Any Books So Sensible Since.
Lying
Book
Nurse
There Are Two Ways Of Getting Home; And One Of Them Is To Stay There.
Inspiring
Travel
Home
I've Been To Every Park In Every City And Not Seen A Statue To A Committee.
Cities
Parks
Committees
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
By All Men Bond To Nothing, Being Slaves Without A Lord, By One Blind Idiot World Obeyed, Too Blind To Be Abhorred.
Men
World
Idiot
When People Begin To Ignore Human Dignity, It Will Not Be Long Before They Begin To Ignore Human Rights.
Rights
Long
People
There Is Nothing Harder To Learn Than Painting And Nothing Which Most People Take Less Trouble About Learning.
Education
People
Painting
By A Curious Confusion, Many Modern Critics Have Passed From The Proposition That A Masterpiece May Be Unpopular To The Other Proposition That Unless It Is Unpopular It Cannot Be A Masterpiece.
Confusion
May
Modern
Nothing Can Ever Overcome That One Enormous Sex (female) Superiority That Even The Male Child Is Born Closer To His Mother Than To His Father.
Mother
Sex
Children
An Artist Will Betray Himself By Some Sort Of Sincerity.
Betrayal
Artist
Sincerity
Art Is Born When The Temporary Touches The Eternal.
Art
Born
Eternal
War Is Not The Best Way Of Settling Differences; It Is The Only Way Of Preventing Their Being Settled For You.
War
Differences
Way
You Can Never Have A Revolution In Order To Establish A Democracy. You Must Have A Democracy In Order To Have A Revolution.
Freedom
Democracies Have
Order
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
Youth Is Always Too Serious, And Just Now It Is Too Serious About Frivolity.
Serious
Youth
Frivolity
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
Spring Never Is Spring Unless It Comes Too Soon.
Nature
Spring
Environment
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
The Rich Are The Scum Of The Earth In Every Country.
Country
Scum Of The Earth
Rich
There Are No Rules Of Architecture For A Castle In The Clouds.
Graduation
Hope
Carpe Diem
Circumstances Break Men's Bones; It Has Never Been Shown That They Break Men's Optimism.
Men
Optimism
Bones
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
Properly Speaking, Of Course, There Is No Such Thing As A Return To Nature, Because There Is No Such Thing As A Departure From It. The Phrase Reminds One Of The Slightly Intoxicated Gentleman Who Gets Up In His Own Dining Room And Declares Firmly That He Must Be Getting Home.
Home
Gentleman
Dining
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
It Is A Quaint Comment On The Notion That The English Are Practical And The French Merely Visionary, That We Were Rebels In Arts While They Were Rebels In Arms.
Art
Visionaries
Arms
A Man Running After A Hat Is Not Half So Ridiculous As A Man Running After A Woman.
Running
Women
Half
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