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The Mind That Finds Its Way To Wild Places Is The Poet's; But The Mind That Never Finds Its Way Back Is The Lunatic's.
-Gilbert K. Chesterton
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The Mind That Finds

Gilbert K. Chesterton
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The Mind That Finds Its Way To Wild Places Is The Poet's; But The Mind That Never Finds Its Way Back Is The Lunatic's.

Understanding the Quote: "the mind that finds its way to wild places is the poet's;..."

This quote by Gilbert K. Chesterton reflects deeply on the theme of wild places. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Wild Places, Mind, Way, 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 wild places and mind. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

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

Closing Thoughts

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

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Topic
Wild Places
Mind
Way
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Dear Sir: Regarding Your Article 'what's Wrong With The World?' I Am. Yours Truly.
World
Dear
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The Whole Point Of The Eugenic Pseudo-scientific Theories Is That They Are To Be Applied Wholesale, By Some More Sweeping And Generalizing Money Power Than The Individual Husband Or Wife Or Household. 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
Husband
Stupid
Never Invoke The Gods Unless You Really Want Them To Appear. It Annoys Them Very Much.
Annoyed
Literature
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Progress Is Providence Without God. That Is, It Is A Theory That Everything Has Always Perpetually Gone Right By Accident. It Is A Sort Of Atheistic Optimism, Based On An Everlasting Coincidence Far More Miraculous Than A Miracle.
Atheist
Optimism
Miracle
No Man Must Be Superior To The Things That Are Common To Men.... Not Only Are We All In The Same Boat, But We Are All Seasick.
Men
Common
Boat
If The Apple Hit Newton’s Nose, Newton’s Nose Hit The Apple.
Apples
Noses
Newton
The Fatal Metaphor Of Progress, Which Means Leaving Things Behind Us, Has Utterly Obscured The Real Idea Of Growth, Which Means Leaving Things Inside Us.
Inspirational
Real
Mean
Even In A Minute Instance, It Is Best To Look First To The Main Tendencies Of Nature. A Particular Flower May Not Be Dead In Early Winter, But The Flowers Are Dying; A Particular Pebble May Never Be Wetted With The Tide, But The Tide Is Coming In. To The Scientific Eye All Human History Is A Series Of Collective Movements, Destructions Or Migrations, Like The Massacre Of Flies In Winter Or The Return Of Birds In Spring.
Spring
Flower
Eye
There Is A Road From The Eye To The Heart That Does Not Go Through The Intellect.
Beauty
Broken Heart
Beautiful
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
Every One On The Earth Should Believe That He Has Something To Give To The World Which Cannot Otherwise Be Given.
Believe
Giving
World
Tradition Means Giving Votes To The Most Obscure Of All Classes, Our Ancestors. It Is The Democracy Of The Dead. Tradition Refuses To Submit To That Arrogant Oligarchy Who Merely Happen To Be Walking Around.
Mean
Class
Giving
A Great Classic Means A Man Whom One Can Praise Without Having Read.
Mean
Men
Classic
A Good Joke Is The Closest Thing We Have To Divine Revelation.
Divine Revelation
Revelations
Theologian
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
Unless A Man Starts Afresh About Things, He Will Certainly Do Nothing Effective. Unless A Man Starts On The Strange Assumption That He Has Never Existed Before, It Is Quite Certain That He Will Never Exist Afterwards.
Men
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Assumption
The Modern World Is Not Evil; In Some Ways The Modern World Is Far Too Good. It Is Full Of Wild And Wasted Virtues. When A Religious Scheme Is Shattered (as Christianity Was Shattered At The Reformation), It Is Not Merely The Vices That Are Let Loose. The Vices Are, Indeed, Let Loose, And They Wander And Do Damage. But The Virtues Are Let Loose Also; And The Virtues Wander More Wildly, And The Virtues Do More Terrible Damage. The Modern World Is Full Of The Old Christian Virtues Gone Mad. The Virtues Have Gone Mad Because They Have Been Isolated From Each Other And Are Wandering Alone.
Christian
Religious
Evil
Only Men To Whom The Family Is Sacred Will Ever Have A Standard Or A Status By Which To Criticize The State. They Alone Can Appeal To Something More Holy Than The Gods Of The City.
Family
Men
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O God Of Earth And Altar, Bow Down And Hear Our Cry, Our Earthly Rulers Falter, Our People Drift And Die; The Walls Of Gold Entomb Us, The Swords Of Scorn Divide, Take Not Thy Thunder From Us, But Take Away Our Pride.
Wall
Pride
People
Education Is Implication. It Is Not The Things You Say Which Children Respect; When You Say Things, They Very Commonly Laugh And Do The Opposite. It Is The Things You Assume Which Really Sink Into Them. It Is The Things You Forget Even To Teach That They Learn.
Children
Opposites
Laughing
I Always Like A Dog So Long As He Isn't Spelled Backward.
Funny
Spiritual
Dog
They Say Travel Broadens The Mind, But You Must Have The Mind.
Travel
Mind
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
Progress Is The Mother Of Problems.
Mother
Progress
Problem
The Great Intellectual Tradition That Comes Down To Us From The Past Was Never Interrupted Or Lost Through Such Trifles As The Sack Of Rome, The Triumph Of Attila, Or All The Barbarian Invasions Of The Dark Ages. It Was Lost After The Introduction Of Printing, The Discovery Of America, The Founding Of The Royal Society, And All The Enlightenment Of The Renaissance And The Modern World. It Was There, If Anywhere, That There Was Lost Or Impatiently Snapped The Long Thin Delicate Thread That Had Descended From Distant Antiquity; The Thread Of That Unusual Human Hobby: The Habit Of Thinking.
Dark
Thinking
Past
London Is A Riddle. Paris Is An Explanation.
Paris
London
Riddle
There Are No Words To Express The Abyss Between Isolation And Having One Ally. It May Be Conceded To The Mathematician That Four Is Twice Two. But Two Is Not Twice One; Two Is Two Thousand Times One.
Two
Allies
Four
A Feminist Is Someone Who Loathes Being A Woman And Who Dislikes The Chief Feminine Characteristics.
Feminist
Modesty
Being A Woman
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.
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Husband
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Being 'contented' Ought To Mean In English, As It Does In French, Being Pleased. Being Content With An Attic Ought Not To Mean Being Unable To Move From It And Resigned To Living In It; It Ought To Mean Appreciating All There Is In Such A Position.
Moving
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Modern Toleration Is Really A Tyranny. It Is A Tyranny Because It Is A Silence.
Silence
Modern
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No Man Who Worships Education Has Got The Best Out Of Education... Without A Gentle Contempt For Education No Man's Education Is Complete.
Education
Teaching
Men
You May Think A Crime Horrible Because You Could Never Commit It. I Think It Is Horrible Because I Could Commit It.
Thinking
May
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There Is No Such Thing As Education. The Thing Is Merely A Loose Phrase For The Passing On To Others Of Whatever Truth Or Virtue We Happen To Have Ourselves. It Is Typical Of Our Time That The More Doubtful We Are About The Value Of Philosophy, The More Certain We Are About The Value Of Education. That Is To Say, The More Doubtful We Are About Whether We Have Any Truth, The More Certain We Are (apparently) That We Can Teach It To Our Children.
Children
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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
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Whatever Else May Be Said Of Man, This One Thing Is Clear: He Is Not What He Is Capable Of Being.
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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
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Giving
Reason Is Always A Kind Of Brute Force; Those Who Appeal To The Head Rather Than The Heart, However Pallid And Polite, Are Necessarily Men Of Violence. We Speak Of 'touching' A Man's Heart, But We Can Do Nothing To His Head But Hit It.
Heart
Men
Touching
There Is One Thing Which Gives Radiance To Everything. It Is The Idea Of Something Around The Corner.
Hope
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Tea, Although An Orientalis A Gentleman At Least;cocoa Is A Cad And Coward,cocoa Is A Vulgar Beast.
Gentleman
Tea
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A Man Can Never Quite Understand A Boy, Even When He Has Been A Boy.
Boys
Men
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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
Compromise Used To Mean That Half A Loaf Was Better Than No Bread. Among Modern Statesmen It Really Seems To Mean That Half A Loaf; Is Better Than A Whole Loaf.
Mean
Half
Literature
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 Two Ways To Get Enough. One Is To Continue To Accumulate More And More. The Other Is To Desire Less.
Life
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In All Legends Men Have Thought Of Women As Sublime Separately But Horrible In A Herd.
Men
Sublime
Legends
The Humorous Look Of Children Is Perhaps The Most Endearing Of All The Bonds That Hold The Cosmos Together.
Children
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Together
Thrift Is The Really Romantic Thing; Economy Is More Romantic Than Extravagance... Thrift Is Poetic Because It Is Creative; Waste Is Unpoetic Because It Is Waste... If A Man Could Undertake To Make Use Of All The Things In His Dustbin, He Would Be A Broader Genius Than Shakespeare.
Men
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The Modern World Is A Crowd Of Very Rapid Racing Cars All Brought To A Standstill And Stuck In A Block Of Traffic.
Block
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People Talk Of The Pathos And Failure Of Plain Women; But It Is A More Terrible Thing That A Beautiful Woman May Succeed In Everything But Womanhood.
Beautiful
People
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The Books That Influence The World Are Those That It Has Not Read.
Book
World
Influence
You Can Never Have A Revolution In Order To Establish A Democracy. You Must Have A Democracy In Order To Have A Revolution.
Freedom
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Order
The More I Considered Christianity, The More I Found That While It Had Established A Rule And Order, The Chief Aim Of That Order Was To Give Room For Good Things To Run Wild.
Christian
Running
Order
Sometimes He Even Embarrassed The Company By Phrases Suggesting That There Was Some Difference Between A Liberal And A Conservative.
Differences
Phrases
Conservative
He Walked By Instinct Along One White Road, On Which Early Birds Hopped And Sang, And Found Himself Outside A Fenced Garden. There He Saw The Sister Of Gregory, The Girl With The Gold-red Hair, Cutting Lilac Before Breakfast, With The Great Unconscious Gravity Of A Girl.
Girl
Cutting
Garden
It Is Cold Anarchy To Say That All Men Are To Meddle In All Men'smarriages. It Is Cold Anarchy To Say That Any Doctor May Seize Andsegregate Anyone He Likes. But It Is Not Anarchy To Say That A Fewgreat Hygienists Might Enclose Or Limit The Life Of All Citizens,as Nurses Do With A Family Of Children. It Is Not Anarchy, It Istyranny; But Tyranny Is A Workable Thing.
Children
Men
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Freethinkers Are Occasionally Thoughtful, Though Never Free.
Thoughtful
Freethinker
Blessed Is He That Expecteth Nothing, For He Shall Be Gloriously Surprised.
Blessed
Expectations
The True Object Of Human Life Is Play.
Play
Life Is
Human Life
It Isn't That They Can't See The Solution. It's That They Can't See The Problem. They Can't See The Problem If They Are Looking In The Wrong Place. They Can't See The Problem If They Have Blinders On - For 'none Are So Blind As Those That Will Not See'.
Healing
Problem
Blind
Thrift Is Poetic Because It Is Creative; Waste Is Unpoetic Because It Is Waste.
Creative
Waste
Dustbin
It Is Not Bigotry To Be Certain We Are Right; But It Is Bigotry To Be Unable To Imagine How We Might Possibly Have Gone Wrong.
Catholic
Doubt
Gone
The Real Pleasure-seeking Is The Combination Of Luxury And Austerity In Such A Way That The Luxury Can Really Be Felt.
Happiness
Real
Pleasure Seeking
...the Primary Paradox That Man Is Superior To All The Things Around Him And Yet Is At Their Mercy.
Men
Mercy
Paradox
I Am Not Absentminded. It Is The Presence Of Mind That Makes Me Unaware Of Everything Else.
Funny
Life
Presence Of Mind
Instead Of Looking At Books And Pictures About The New Testament I Looked At The New Testament. There I Found An Account, Not In The Least Of A Person With His Hair Parted In The Middle Or His Hands Clasped In Appeal, But Of An Extraordinary Being With Lips Of Thunder And Acts Of Lurid Decision, Flinging Down Tables, Casting Out Devils, Passing With The Wild Secrecy Of The Wind From Mountain Isolation To A Sort Of Dreadful Demagogy; A Being Who Often Acted Like An Angry God — And Always Like A God.
Book
Hair
Hands
Journalism Largely Consists Of Saying 'lord Jones Is Dead' To People Who Never Knew That Lord Jones Was Alive.
Funny
Business
Humor
The Full Potentialities Of Human Fury Cannot Be Reached Until A Friend Of Both Parties Tactfully Intervenes.
Party
Anger
Rage
The Present Condition Of Fame Is Merely Fashion.
Fashion
Literature
Fame
The Perplexity Of Life Arises From There Being Too Many Interesting Things In It For Us To Be Interested Properly In Any Of Them.
Science
Interesting
Decision
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
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
Men Invent New Ideals Because They Dare Not Attempt Old Ideals. They Look Forward With Enthusiasm, Because They Are Afraid To Look Back.
Men
Progress
Looks
The Most Poetical Thing In The World Is Not Being Sick.
Sick
World
Being Sick
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
Two
People
Most Americans Are Born Drunk, And Really Require A Little Wine Or Beer To Sober Them.
Wine
Beer
Drunk
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
...but Out Of The Desert, From The Dry Places And The Dreadful Suns, Come The Cruel Children Of The Lonely God; The Real Unitarians Who With Scimitar In Hand Have Laid Waste The World. For It Is Not Well For God To Be Alone.
Lonely
Children
Real
We Need To Be Reminded More Than We Need To Be Instructed
Needs
Literature And Fiction Are Two Entirely Different Things. Literature Is A Luxury; Fiction Is A Necessity.
Two
Luxury
Different
Why Are We Not Grateful To God For Filling Our Stockings With Legs?
Christmas
Grateful
Thank You God
Without Education We Are In A Horrible And Deadly Danger Of Taking Educated People Seriously.
Inspirational
Education
School
I Never Said A Word Against Eminent Men Of Science. What I Complain Of Is A Vague Popular Philosophy Which Supposes Itself To Be Scientific When It Is Really Nothing But A Sort Of New Religion And An Uncommonly Nasty One. When People Talked About The Fall Of Man, They Knew They Were Talking About A Mystery, A Thing They Didn't Understand. Now They Talk About The Survival Of The Fittest: They Think They Do Understand It, Whereas They Have Not Merely No Notion, They Have An Elaborately False Notion Of What The Words Mean.
Philosophy
Fall
Mean
Progress Is A Comparative Of Which We Have Not Settled The Superlative.
Progress Of Society
Progress
Cult
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
When A Woman Puts Up Her Fists To A Man She Is Putting Herself In The Only Posture In Which He Is Not Afraid Of Her.
Men
Fists
Posture
It Is Better To Speak Wisdom Foolishly Like The Saints Than To Speak Folly Wisely Like The Deans.
Education
Saint
Speak
Men Always Talk About The Most Important Things To Perfect Strangers. In The Perfect Stranger We Perceive Man Himself; The Image Of A God Is Not Disguised By Resemblances To An Uncle Or Doubts Of Wisdom Of A Mustache.
Uncles
Men
Perfect
Moderate Strength Is Shown In Violence, Supreme Strength Is Shown In Levity.
Laughing
Violence
Levity
The Prophet And The Quack Are Alike Admired For A Generation, And Admired For The Wrong Reasons.
Generations
Reason
Prophet
Nobody Notices Postmen, Yet They Have Passions Like Other Men.
Passion
Men
Postman
Christianity Even When Watered Down Is Hot Enough To Boil All Modern Society To Rags.
Rags
Hot
Christianity
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
For Children Are Innocent And Love Justice, While Most Of Us Are Wicked And Naturally Prefer Mercy.
Love
Children
Justice
I Should Favour Anything That Would Increase The Present Enormous Authority Of Women And Their Creative Action In Their Own Homes. The Average Woman...is A Despot; The Average Man Is A Serf.
Women
Home
Average
There Cannot Be A Nation Of Millionaires, And There Never Has Been A Nation Of Utopian Comrades; But There Have Been Any Number Of Nations Of Tolerably Contented Peasants.
Numbers
Peasants
Millionaire
The Secularists Have Not Wrecked Divine Things; But The Secularists Have Wrecked Secular Things, If That Is Any Comfort To Them. The Titans Did Not Scale Heaven; But They Laid Waste The World.
Heaven
Atheism
Nihilism
I Need Not Pause To Explain That Crime Is Not A Disease. It Is Criminology That Is A Disease.
Needs
Disease
Crime
If Our Caricaturists Do Not Hate Their Enemies, It Is Not Because They Are Too Big To Hate Them, But Because Their Enemies Are Not Big Enough To Hate.
Hate
Enemy
Enough
A Puritan Is A Person Who Pours Righteous Indignation Into The Wrong Things.
Puritan
Righteous
Persons
Think Of All Those Ages Through Which Men Have Had The Courage To Die, And Then Remember That We Have Actually Fallen To Talking About Having The Courage To Live.
Men
Thinking
Talking
A Man Running After A Hat Is Not Half So Ridiculous As A Man Running After A Woman.
Running
Women
Half
Tolerance Is The Virtue Of Those Who Don't Believe Anything.
Believe
Tolerance
Virtue
As To The Doubt Of The Soul I Discover It To Be False: A Mood Not A Conclusion. My Conclusion Is The Faith. Corporate, Organized, A Personality, Teaching. A Thing, Not A Theory. It.
Teaching
Personality
Soul
The Poetry Of Art Is In Beholding The Single Tower; The Poetry Of Nature In Seeing The Single Tree; The Poetry Of Love In Following The Single Woman; The Poetry Of Religion In Worshipping The Single Star.
Art
Stars
Tree
The Atheist Is Not Interested In Anything Except Attacks On Atheism.
Atheist
Atheism
Not Interested
We Should Always Endeavor To Wonder At The Permanent Thing, Not At The Mere Exception. We Should Be Startled By The Sun, And Not By The Eclipse. We Should Wonder Less At The Earthquake, And Wonder More At The Earth.
Earthquakes
Sun
Wonder
As Regards Moral Courage, Then, It Is Not So Much That The Public Schools Support It Feebly, As That They Suppress It Firmly.
School
Support
Moral
If Seeds In The Black Earth Can Turn Into Such Beautiful Roses, What Might Not The Heart Of Man Become In Its Long Journey Toward The Stars?
Beautiful
Hope
Stars
And I Will Add This Point Of Merely Personal Experience Of Humanity: When Men Have A Real Explanation They Explain It, Eagerly And Copiously And In Common Speech, As Huxley Freely Gave It When He Thought He Had It. When They Have No Explanation To Offer, They Give Short Dignified Replies, Disdainful Of The Ignorance Of The Multitude.
Real
Ignorance
Men
That Young Man With The Long, Auburn Hair And The Impudent Face - That Young Man Was Not Really A Poet; But Surely He Was A Poem.
Men
Hair
Long
If You Happen To Read Fairy Tales, You Will Observe That One Idea Runs From One End Of Them To The Other--the Idea That Peace And Happiness Can Only Exist On Some Condition. This Idea, Which Is The Core Of Ethics, Is The Core Of The Nursery-tales.
Running
Ideas
Nurse
Somehow One Must Love The World Without Being Worldly.
World
Worldly
The Wisest Thing In The World Is To Cry Out Before You Are Hurt. It Is No Good To Cry Out After You Are Hurt; Especially After You Are Mortally Hurt. People Talk About The Impatience Of The Populace; But Sound Historians Know That Most Tyrannies Have Been Possible Because Men Moved Too Late. It Is Often Essential To Resist A Tyranny Before It Exists.
Hurt
Men
People
I've Searched All The Parks In All The Cities - And Found No Statues Of Committees.
Inspirational
Cities
Parks
It Never Occurred To Him To Be Spiritually Won Over To The Enemy. Many Moderns, Inured To A Weak Worship Of Intellect And Force, Might Have Wavered In Their Allegiance Under This Oppression Of A Great Personality. . . . But This Was A Kind Of Modern Meanness To Which Syme Could Not Sink Even In His Extreme Morbidity. Like Any Man, He Was Coward Enough To Fear Great Force; But He Was Not Coward Enough To Admire It.
Men
Personality
Enemy
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
If I Had Only One Sermon To Preach It Would Be A Sermon Against Pride.
Pride
Would Be
Preaching
It Is The Test Of A Good Religion Whether You Can Joke About It.
Religion
Tests
Childlike Faith
...there Is In Life An Element Of Elfin Coincidence Which People Reckoning On The Prosaic May Perpetually Miss. As It Has Been Well Expressed In The Paradox Of Poe, Wisdom Should Reason On The Unforeseen.
Wisdom
People
Missing
Truths Turn Into Dogmas The Instant That They Are Disputed. Thus Every Man Who Utters A Doubt Defines A Religion.
Men
Doubt
Dogma
The Sceptics, Like Bees, Give Their One Sting And Die.
Giving
Bees
Skeptic
Hope Means Hoping When Everything Seems Hopeless.
Hope
Mean
Unbelievable Things
Hell Is God's Great Compliment To The Reality Of Human Freedom And The Dignity Of Human Choice.
Reality
Choices
Dignity
Do Not Look At The Faces In The Illustrated Papers. Look At The Faces In The Street.
Looks
Paper
Faces
Realism Is Simply Romanticism That Has Lost Its Reason...that Is Its Reason For Existing.
Reason
Lost
Realism
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
Self-denial Is The Test And Definition Of Self-government.
Self
Government
Culture
America Is The Only Nation In The World That Is Founded On Creed. That Creed Is Set Forth With Dogmatic And Even Theological Lucidity In The Declaration Of Independence; Perhaps The Only Piece Of Practical Politics That Is Also Theoretical Politics And Also Great Literature.
America
Independence
Pieces
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
Poetry Is Sane Because It Floats Easily In An Infinite Sea; Reason Seeks To Cross The Infinite Sea And So Make It Finite. The Result Is Mental Exhaustion. To Accept Everything Is An Exercise, To Understand Everything A Strain.
Exercise
Sea
Infinite
Free Verse'? You May As Well Call Sleeping In A Ditch 'free Architecture'.
Sleep
May
Architecture
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
You Never Know The Best About Men Until You Know The Worst About Them.
Men
Worst
Knows
A Man Does Not Know What He Is Saying Until He Knows What He Is Not Saying.
Knowledge
Men
Doe
He Has Come To The Most Dreadful Conclusion A Literary Man Can Come To, The Conclusion That The Ordinary View Is The Right One. It Is Only The Last And Wildest Kind Of Courage That Can Stand On A Tower Before Ten Thousand People And Tell Them That Twice Two Is Four.
Men
Views
Two
There Are Arguments For Atheism, And They Do Not Depend, And Never Did Depend, Upon Science. They Are Arguable Enough, As Far As They Go, Upon A General Survey Of Life; Only It Happens To Be A Superficial Survey Of Life.
Atheist
Atheism
Argument
The True Soldier Fights Not Because He Hates What Is In Front Of Him, But Because He Loves What Is Behind Him.
Life
Hate
Passion
The Coziness Between Church And State Is Good For The State And Bad For The Church
Church
States
Church And State
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
The Modern World Has Far Too Little Understanding Of The Art Of Keeping Young. Its Notion Of Progress Has Been To Pile One Thing On Top Of Another, Without Caring If Each Thing Was Crushed In Turn. People Forgot That The Human Soul Can Enjoy A Thing Most When There Is Time To Think About It And Be Thankful For It. And By Crowding Things Together They Lost The Sense Of Surprise; And Surprise Is The Secret Of Joy.
Art
Caring
Thinking
At The Bottom Of All The Tributes Paid To Democracy Is The Little Man, Walking Into The Little Booth, With A Little Pencil, Making A Little Cross On A Little Bit Of Paper. . . .
Men
Democracy
Paper
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
I Might Inform Those Humanitarians Who Have A Nightmare Of New And Needless Babies (for Some Humanitarians Have That Sort Of Horror Of Humanity) That If The Recent Decline In The Birth-rate Were Continued For A Certain Time, It Might End In There Being No Babies At All; Which Would Console Them Very Much.
Baby
Birth Rate
Humanity
Men Feel That Cruelty To The Poor Is A Kind Of Cruelty To Animals. They Never Feel That It Is An Injustice To Equals; Nay It Is Treachery To Comrades.
Men
Animal
Kind
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
There Is A Great Deal Of Difference Between An Eager Man Who Wants To Read A Book And The Tired Man Who Wants A Book To Read.
Inspirational
Education
Book
When It Comes To Life The Critical Thing Is Whether You Take Things For Granted Or Take Them With Gratitude.
Gratitude
Live Life
Grateful
Catholic Doctrine And Discipline May Be Walls; But They Are The Walls Of A Playground.
Wall
Discipline
Catholic
Even In An Empire Of Atheists The Dead Man Is Always Sacred.
Atheist
Men
Sacred
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.
War
Past
Ideas
To Say That A Man Is An Idealist Is Merely To Say That He Is A Man.
Life
Men
Idealist
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
Imagination Does Not Breed Insanity. Exactly What Does Breed Insanity Is Reason. Poets Do Not Go Mad, But Chess Players Do.
Player
Mad
Imagination
You Can't Have The Family Farm Without The Family.
Economic
Family Farms
Farms
Truth Is Sacred; And If You Tell The Truth Too Often Nobody Will Believe It.
Believe
Sacred
Morality
I Believe Your Own Accent Is Inimitable, Though I Shall Practice It In My Bath.
Believe
Practice
Baths
They Hate Kings, They Hate Priests, They Hate Soldiers, They Hate Sailors. They Distrust Men Of Science, They Denounce The Middle Classes, They Despair Of Working Men, But They Adore Humanity. Only They Always Speak Of Humanity As If It Were A Curious Foreign Nation. They Are Dividing Themselves More And More From Men To Exalt The Strange Race Of Mankind. They Are Ceasing To Be Human In The Effort To Be Humane.
Kings
Hate
Men
I Am Myself So Exceedingly Nordic, As Far As Physical Constitution Is Concerned, That I Can Enjoy Almost Any Weather Except What Is Called Glorious Weather. At The End Of A Few Days, I Am Left Wondering How The Men Of The Mediterranean Ever Managed To Do Almost All The Most Active And Astonishing Things That Have Been Done.
Men
Weather
Done
You Cannot Grow A Beard In A Moment Of Passion.
Truth
Passion
Beard
Wit Is A Sword; It Is Meant To Make People Feel The Point As Well As See It.
People
Wit
Wells
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.
Art
Believe
Men
Whenever You Remove Any Fence, Always Pause Long Enough To Ask Why It Was Put There In The First Place.
Long
Firsts
Enough
This Is The Age In Which Thin And Theoretic Minorities Can Cover And Conquer Unconscious And Untheoretic Majorities.
Progress
Age
Minorities
Gratitude, Being Nearly The Greatest Of Human Duties, Is Also Nearly The Most Difficult.
Gratitude
Duty
Difficult
I Defy Anybody To Say What Are The Rights Of A Citizen, If They Do Not Include The Control Of His Own Diet In Relation To His Own Health.
Rights
Citizens
Relation
No Man Knows He Is Young While He Is Young.
Funny
Witty
Time
Art, Like Morality, Consists In Drawing The Line Somewhere.
Art
Funny Friend
Drawing
A Man Cannot Have The Energy To Produce Good Art Without Having The Energy To Wish To Pass Beyond It.
Art
Men
Wish
Jokes Are Generally Honest. Complete Solemnity Is Always Dishonest.
Honesty
Honest
Solemnity
Busy Editors Cannot Be Expected To Put On Their Posters, "mr. Wilkinson Still Safe," Or "mr. Jones, Of Worthing, Not Dead Yet." They Cannot Announce The Happiness Of Mankind At All. They Cannot Describe All The Forks That Are Not Stolen, Or All The Marriages That Are Not Judiciously Dissolved. Hence The Complex Picture They Give Of Life Is Of Necessity Fallacious; They Can Only Represent What Is Unusual.
Editors
Giving
Safe
Every Remedy Is A Desperate Remedy. Every Cure Is A Miraculous Cure. Curing A Madman Is Not Arguing With A Philosopher; It Is Casting Out A Devil.
Devil
Casting
Philosopher
The Whole Truth Is Generally The Ally Of Virtue; A Half-truth Is Always The Ally Of Some Vice.
Catholic
Half
Vices
All Men Thirst To Confess Their Crimes More Than Tired Beasts Thirst For Water; But They Naturally Object To Confessing Them While Other People, Who Have Also Committed The Same Crimes, Sit By And Laugh At Them.
Tired
Men
Water
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
That Is The One Eternal Education: To Be Sure Enough That Something Is True That You Dare To Tell It To A Child.
Children
Enough
Dare
There Is Nothing Harder To Learn Than Painting And Nothing Which Most People Take Less Trouble About Learning.
Education
People
Painting
When You With Velvets Mantled O'er, Defy December's Tempests Frore, Oh! Spare One Garment From Your Store, To Clothe The Poor At Christmas.
Christmas
Velvet
December
Pessimism Is Not In Being Tired Of Evil But In Being Tired Of Good. Despair Does Not Lie In Being Weary Of Suffering, But In Being Weary Of Joy. It Is When For Some Reason Or Other Good Things In A Society No Longer Work That The Society Begins To Decline; When Its Food Does Not Feed, When Its Cures Do Not Cure, When Its Blessings Refuse To Bless.
Lying
Tired
Blessing
The Object Of Opening The Mind, As Of Opening The Mouth, Is To Shut It Again On Something Solid.
Mind
Literature
Mouths
I Am The Fool In This Story, And No Rebel Shall Hurl Me From My Throne.
Rebel
Thrones
Stories
A Third-class Carriage Is A Community, While A First-class Carriage Is A Place Of Wild Hermits.
Class
Community
Firsts
...it's Natural To Believe In The Supernatural. It Never Feels Natural To Accept Only Natural Things.
Believe
Natural
Accepting
One May Understand The Cosmos, But Never The Ego; The Self Is More Distant Than Any Star.
Stars
Knowledge
Acceptance
I Have Myself A Poetical Enthusiasm For Pigs, And The Paradise Of My Fancy Is One Where Pigs Have Wings. But It Is Only Men, Especially Wise Men, Who Discuss Whether Pigs Can Fly; We Have No Particular Proof That Pigs Ever Discuss It.
Wise
Men
Pigs
It Is The First Law Of Practical Courage. To Be In The Weakest Camp Is To Be In The Strongest School.
Courage
School
Law
The Only Defensible War Is A War Of Defense.
Peace
War
Defense
Truth, Of Course, Must Of Necessity Be Stranger Than Fiction, For We Have Made Fiction To Suit Ourselves.
Truth
Fiction
Suits
All The Exaggerations Are Right, If They Exaggerate The Right Thing.
Timeless
Exaggeration
Ifs
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
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 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
Men Do Not Differ Much About What Things They Will Call Evils; They Differ Enormously About What Evils They Will Call Excusable.
Men
Evil
Catholic
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
There Is A Corollary To The Conception Of Being Too Proud To Fight. It Is That The Humble Have To Do Most Of The Fighting.
Humble
Fighting
Proud
I Have Little Doubt That When St. George Had Killed The Dragon He Was Heartily Afraid Of The Princess.
Love
Princess
Dragons
Music With Dinner Is An Insult Both To The Cook And The Violinist.
Music
Food
Literature
The Christian Is Quite Free To Believe That There Is A Considerable Amount Of Settled Order And Inevitable Development In The Universe. But The Materialist Is Not Allowed To Admit Into His Spotless Machine The Slightest Speck Of Spiritualism Or Miracle.
Christian
Believe
Order
Idolatry Is When You Worship What You Should Use, And Use What You Should Worship.
Use
Worship
Should
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