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There Is A Law Written In The Darkest Of The Books Of Life, And It Is This: If You Look At A Thing Nine Hundred And Ninety-nine Times, You Are Perfectly Safe; If You Look At It The Thousandth Time, You Are In Frightful Danger Of Seeing It For The First Time.
-Gilbert K. Chesterton
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There Is A Law

Gilbert K. Chesterton
There Is A Law Written In The Darkest Of The Books Of Life, And It Is This: If You Look At A Thing Nine Hundred And Ninety-nine Times, You Are Perfectly Safe; If You Look At It The Thousandth Time, You Are In Frightful Danger Of Seeing It For The First Time.
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Men Spoke Much In My Boyhood About Restricted Or Ruined Men Of Genius: And It Was Common To Say That Many A Man Was A Great Might-have-been. To Me It's A More Solid And Startling Fact That Any Man In The Street Is A Great Might-not-have-been.
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Liberty Is The Very Last Idea That Seems To Occur To Anybody, In Considering Any Political Or Social Proposal. It Is Only Necessary For Anybody For Any Reason To Allege Any Evidence Of Any Evil In Any Human Practice, For People Instantly To Suggest That The Practice Should Be Suppressed By The Police.
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We All Have A Little Weakness, Which Is Very Natural But Rather Misleading, For Supposing That This Epoch Must Be The End Of The World Because It Will Be The End Of Us. How Future Generations Will Get On Without Us Is Indeed, When We Come To Think Of It, Quite A Puzzle. But I Suppose They Will Get On Somehow, And May Possibly Venture To Revise Our Judgments As We Have Revised Earlier Judgments.
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Just The Other Day In The Underground I Enjoyed The Pleasure Of Offering My Seat To Three Ladies.
Food
Offering
Three
That Is The One Eternal Education: To Be Sure Enough That Something Is True That You Dare To Tell It To A Child.
Children
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A Radical Generally Meant A Man Who Thought He Could Somehow Pull Up The Root Without Affecting The Flower. A Conservative Generally Meant A Man Who Wanted To Conserve Everything Except His Own Reason For Conserving Anything.
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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
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Miracle
I Am A Journalist And Have No Earthly Motives Except Curiosity And Personal Vanity.
Vanity
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Americans Have A Taste For…rocking-chairs. A Flippant Critic Might Suggest That They Select Rocking-chairs So That, Even When They Are Sitting Down, They Need Not Be Sitting Still. Something Of This Restlessness In The Race May Really Be Involved In The Matter; But I Think The Deeper Significance Of The Rocking-chair May Still Be Found In The Deeper Symbolism Of The Rocking-horse. I Think There Is Behind All This Fresh And Facile Use Of Wood A Certain Spirit That Is Childish In The Good Sense Of The Word; Something That Is Innocent, And Easily Pleased.
Horse
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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
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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
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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
Christianity, Whatever Else It Is, Is An Explosion. Unless It Is Sensational There Is Simply No Sense In It. Unless The Gospel Sounds Like A Gun Going Off It Has Not Been Uttered At All.
Gun
Sound
Christianity
An Almost Unnatural Vigilance Is Really Required Of The Citizen Because Of The Horrible Rapidity With Which Human Institutions Grow Old.
Citizens
Institutions
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The Humorous Look Of Children Is Perhaps The Most Endearing Of All The Bonds That Hold The Cosmos Together.
Children
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Bigotry May Be Roughly Defined As The Anger Of Men Who Have No Opinions.
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Acceptance Is The Truest Kinship With Humanity.
Acceptance
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Morality Did Not Begin By One Man Saying To Another, "i Will Not Hit You If You Do Not Hit Me"; There Is No Trace Of Such A Transaction. There Is A Trace Of Both Men Having Said, "we Must Not Hit Each Other In The Holy Place.
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Tea, Although An Orientalis A Gentleman At Least;cocoa Is A Cad And Coward,cocoa Is A Vulgar Beast.
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On The Third Day The Friends Of Christ Coming At Daybreak To The Place Found The Grave Empty And The Stone Rolled Away. In Varying Ways They Realized The New Wonder; But Even They Hardly Realized That The World Had Died In The Night. What They Were Looking At Was The First Day Of A New Creation, With A New Heaven And A New Earth; And In A Semblance Of The Gardener God Walked Again In The Garden, In The Cool Not Of The Evening But Of The Dawn.
Night
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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
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There Are No New Ideas About Female Education.
Ideas
Annoying
New Ideas
The Noble Temptation To See Too Much In Everything.
Temptation
Noble
Too Much
Original Sin Is The Only Doctrine That's Been Empirically Validated By 2,000 Years Of Human History.
Years
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People Accuse Journalism Of Being Too Personal; But To Me It Has Always Seemed Far Too Impersonal. It Is Charged With Tearing Away The Veils From Private Life; But It Seems To Me To Be Always Dropping Diaphanous But Blinding Veils Between Men And Men. The Yellow Press Is Abused For Exposing Facts Which Are Private; I Wish The Yellow Press Did Anything So Valuable. It Is Exactly The Decisive Individual Touches That It Never Gives; And A Proof Of This Is That After One Has Met A Man A Million Times In The Newspapers It Is Always A Complete Shock And Reversal To Meet Him In Real Life.
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The Poor Complain That They Are Governed Badly. The Rich Complain That They Are Governed At All.
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I Wish We Could Sometimes Love The Characters In Real Life As We Love The Characters In Romances. There Are A Great Many Human Souls Whom We Should Accept More Kindly, And Even Appreciate More Clearly, If We Simply Thought Of Them As People In A Story.
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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.
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Americans Are A Very Backward People, With All The Real Virtues Of A Backward People; The Patriarchal Simplicity And Human Dignity Of A Democracy, And A Respect For Labor Uncorrupted By Cynicism.
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The Trouble With Christianity Is, Not That Its Failed, But That It's Never Been Tried . . . Not That It Can't Remake The World, But That It's Difficult.
Failure
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Trouble
The Most Dangerous Criminal Now Is The Entirely Lawless Modern Philosopher. Compared To Him, Burglars And Bigamists Are Essentially Moral Men.
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The Catholic Church Is Like A Thick Steak, A Glass Of Red Wine, And A Good Cigar.
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Spring Never Is Spring Unless It Comes Too Soon.
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Man Is An Exception, Whatever Else He Is. If He Is Not The Image Of God, Then He Is A Disease Of The Dust. If It Is Not True That A Divine Being Fell, Then We Can Only Say That One Of The Animals Went Entirely Off Its Head.
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Humility Is The Mother Of Giants.
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Very Few Reputations Are Gained By Unsullied Virtue.
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The Poets Have Been Mysteriously Silent On The Subject Of Cheese.
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The Modern City Is Ugly Not Because It Is A City But Because It Is Not Enough Of A City, Because It Is A Jungle, Because It Is Confused And Anarchic, And Surging With Selfish And Materialistic Energies.
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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.
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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.
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Cruelty Is, Perhaps, The Worst Kid Of Sin. Intellectual Cruelty Is Certainly The Worst Kind Of Cruelty.
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Circumstances Break Men's Bones; It Has Never Been Shown That They Break Men's Optimism.
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A Man Looking At A Hippopotamus May Sometimes Be Tempted To Regard A Hippopotamus As An Enormous Mistake; But He Is Also Bound To Confess That A Fortunate Inferiority Prevents Him Personally From Making Such Mistakes.
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Every Man Speaks Of Public Opinion, And Means By Public Opinion, Public Opinion Minus His Opinion.
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Who Would Condescend To Strike Down The Mere Things That He Does Not Fear? Who Would Debase Himself To Be Merely Brave, Like Any Common Prizefighter? Who Would Stoop To Be Fearless--like A Tree? Fight The Thing That You Fear. You Remember The Old Tale Of The English Clergyman Who Gave The Last Rites To The Brigand Of Sicily, And How On His Death-bed The Great Robber Said, 'i Can Give You No Money, But I Can Give You Advice For A Lifetime: Your Thumb On The Blade, And Strike Upwards.' So I Say To You, Strike Upwards, If You Strike At The Stars.
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Our Civilization Has Decided That Determining The Guilt Or Innocence Of Men Is A Thing Too Important To Be Trusted To Trained Men. When It Wants A Library Catalogued, Or The Solar System Discovered, Or Any Trifle Of That Kind, It Uses Up Its Specialists. But When It Wishes Anything Done Which Is Really Serious, It Collects Twelve Of The Ordinary Men Standing Round. The Same Thing Was Done, If I Remember Right, By The Founder Of Christianity.
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Exactly What The Fairy Tale Does Is This: It Accustoms Him For A Series Of Clear Pictures To The Idea That These Limitless Terrors Had A Limit, That These Shapeless Enemies Have Enemies In The Knights Of God, That There Is Something In The Universe More Mystical Than Darkness, And Stronger Than Strong Fear.
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How Much Larger Your Life Would Be If You Were Smaller In It.
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Christian Inspirational
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Certain New Theologians Dispute Original Sin, Which Is The Only Part Of Christian Theology Which Can Really Be Proved.
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I Despise Birth-control First Because It Is ... An Entirely Meaningless Word; And Is Used So As To Curry Favour Even With Those Who Would First Recoil From Its Real Meaning. The Proceeding These Quack Doctors Recommend Does Not Control Any Birth.
Real
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All Science, Even The Divine Science, Is A Sublime Detective Story. Only It Is Not Set To Detect Why A Man Is Dead; But The Darker Secret Of Why He Is Alive.
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Do Not, I Beseech You Be Troubled By The Increase Of Forces Already In Dissolution. You Have Mistake The Hour Of The Night: It Is Already Morning.
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War Is Not The Best Way Of Settling Differences; It Is The Only Way Of Preventing Their Being Settled For You.
War
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Hell Is God's Great Compliment To The Reality Of Human Freedom And The Dignity Of Human Choice.
Reality
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He Is Only A Very Shallow Critic Who Cannot See An Eternal Rebel In The Heart Of The Conservative.
Heart
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A Feminist Is Someone Who Loathes Being A Woman And Who Dislikes The Chief Feminine Characteristics.
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Modesty
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A Small Artist Is Content With Art; A Great Artist Is Content With Nothing Except Everything.
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A Dead Thing Goes With The Stream, But Only A Living Thing Can Go Against It.
Faith
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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.
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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
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Fighting
For Fear Of The Newspapers Politicians Are Dull, And At Last They Are Too Dull Even For The Newspapers.
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Lasts
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Silence Is The Unbearable Repartee.
Silence
Unbearable
Silence Is
One Pleasure Attached To Growing Older Is That Many Things Seem To Be Growing Younger; Growing Fresher And More Lively Than We Once Supposed Them To Be.
Growing
Aging
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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
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Students Of Popular Science... Are Always Insisting That Christianity And Buddhism Are Very Much Alike, Especially Buddhism. This Is Generally Believed, And I Believed It Myself Until I Read A Book Giving The Reasons For It.
Book
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Let Us Not Decide What Is Good, But Let It Be Considered Good Not To Decide It.
The State Did Not Own Men So Entirely, Even When It Could Send Them To The Stake, As It Sometimes Does Now Where It Can Send Them To The Elementary School.
School
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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
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.
Vegetables
Connections
Gutters
Indeed The Book Of Job Avowedly Only Answers Mystery With Mystery. Job Is Comforted With Riddles; But He Is Comforted. Herein Is Indeed A Type, In The Sense Of A Prophecy, Of Things Speaking With Authority. For When He Who Doubts Can Only Say, ‘i Do Not Understand,’ It Is True That He Who Knows Can Only Reply Or Repeat ‘you Do Not Understand.’ And Under That Rebuke There Is Always A Sudden Hope In The Heart; And The Sense Of Something That Would Be Worth Understanding.
Jobs
Book
Heart
You Never Know The Best About Men Until You Know The Worst About Them.
Men
Worst
Knows
When People Begin To Ignore Human Dignity, It Will Not Be Long Before They Begin To Ignore Human Rights.
Rights
Long
People
It Is True That I Am Of An Older Fashion; Much That I Love Has Been Destroyed Or Sent Into Exile.
Fashion
Culture
Exile
It Is Unpardonable Conceit Not To Laugh At Your Own Jokes. Joking Is Undignified; That Is Why It Is So Good For One's Soul. Do Not Fancy You Can Be A Detached Wit And Avoid Being A Buffoon; You Cannot. If You Are The Court Jester You Must Be The Court Fool.
Laughing
Soul
Fancy
If I Did Not Believe In God, I Should Still Want My Doctor, My Lawyer And My Banker To Do So.
Atheist
Believe
Doctors
Our Society Is So Abnormal That The Normal Man Never Dreams Of Having The Normal Occupation Of Looking After His Own Property. When He Chooses A Trade, He Chooses One Of The Ten Thousand Trades That Involve Looking After Other People's Property.
Dream
Men
People
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
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.
Doe
Looks
Interviews
What Is Called Matriarchy Is Simply Moral Anarchy, In Which The Mother Alone Remains Fixed Because All The Fathers Are Fugitive And Irresponsible.
Mother
Father
Anarchy
The Last Few Decades Have Been Marked By A Special Cultivation Of The Romance Of The Future. We Seem To Have Made Up Our Minds To Misunderstand What Has Happened; And We Turn, With A Sort Of Relief, To Stating What Will Happen-which Is Apparently Much Easier...the Modern Mind Is Forced Towards The Future By A Certain Sense Of Fatigue, Not Unmixed With Terror, With Which It Regards The Past.
Learning
Past
Romance
It Is The First Law Of Practical Courage. To Be In The Weakest Camp Is To Be In The Strongest School.
Courage
School
Law
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
Powerful Men Who Have Powerful Passions Use Much Of Their Strength In Forging Chains For Themselves.
Powerful
Passion
Men
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 Honest Poor Can Sometimes Forget Poverty. The Honest Rich Can Never Forget It.
Poverty
Honest
Never Forget
There Are Two Kinds Of Charlatan: The Man Who Is Called A Charlatan, And The Man Who Really Is One. The First Is The Quack Who Cures You; The Second Is The Highly Qualified Person Who Doesn't.
Men
Two
Firsts
Modern Man Is Educated To Understand Foreign Languages And Misunderstand Foreigners.
Men
Language
Modern
Misers Get Up Early In The Morning; And Burglars, I Am Informed, Get Up The Night Before.
Morning
Night
Up Early
It Was The Mystical Dogma Of Bentham And Adam Smith And The Rest, That Some Of The Worst Of Human Passions Would Turn Out To Be All For The Best. It Was The Mysterious Doctrine That Selfishness Would Do The Work Of Unselfishness.
Passion
Selfishness
Doctrine
There Is A Law Written In The Darkest Of The Books Of Life, And It Is This: If You Look At A Thing Nine Hundred And Ninety-nine Times, You Are Perfectly Safe; If You Look At It The Thousandth Time, You Are In Frightful Danger Of Seeing It For The First Time.
Book
Ninety Nine
Law
No Man's Really Any Good Till He Knows How Bad He Is, Or Might Be.
Men
Might
Know How
I Am A Bad Reporter Because Everything Seems To Me Worth Reporting; And A Bad Reviewer Because Every Sentence In Every Book Suggests A Separate Essay.
Book
Essays
Sentences
Modern Toleration Is Really A Tyranny. It Is A Tyranny Because It Is A Silence.
Silence
Modern
Tyranny
Aristocracy Is An Atmosphere; It Is Sometimes A Healthy Atmosphere; But It Is Very Hard To Say When It Becomes An Unhealthy Atmosphere. You Can Prove That A Man Is Not The Son Of A King, Or That He Is Not The Delegate Of A Definite Number Of People. But You Cannot Prove That A Man Is Not A Gentleman.
Kings
Son
Men
You Can Only Find Truth With Logic If You Have Already Found Truth Without It.
Spiritual
Witty
Truth
No One Can Understand Paris And Its History Who Does Not Understand That Its Fierceness Is The Balance And Justification Of Its Frivolity. It Is Called A City Of Pleasure; But It May Also Very Specially Be Called A City Of Pain. The Crown Of Roses Is Also A Crown Of Thorns. Its People Are Too Prone To Hurt Others, But Quite Ready Also To Hurt Themselves. They Are Martyrs For Religion, They Are Martyrs For Irreligion; They Are Even Martyrs For Immorality.
Hurt
Pain
Cities
Children Are Grateful When Santa Claus Puts In Their Stockings Gifts Of Toys Or Sweets. Could I Not Be Grateful To Santa Claus When He Put In My Stockings The Gift Of Two Miraculous Legs? We Thank People For Birthday Presents Of Cigars And Slippers. Can I Thank No One For The Birthday Present Of Birth?
Sweet
Children
Grateful
There'd Be A Lot Less Scandal If People Didn't Idealize Sin And Pose As Sinners.
People
Scandal
Morality
A Third-class Carriage Is A Community, While A First-class Carriage Is A Place Of Wild Hermits.
Class
Community
Firsts
The World Will Very Soon Be Divided, Unless I Am Mistaken, Into Those Who Still Go On Explaining Our Success, And Those Somewhat More Intelligent Who Are Trying To Explain Our Failure.
Intelligent
Trying
Goes On
Only Man Can Be Absurd: For Only Man Can Be Dignified.
Men
Absurd
Absurdity
...it's Natural To Believe In The Supernatural. It Never Feels Natural To Accept Only Natural Things.
Believe
Natural
Accepting
And Though St. John Saw Many Strange Monsters In His Vision, He Saw No Creature So Wild As One Of His Own Commentators.
Vision
Monsters
Saws
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
Latter-day Scepticism Is Fond Of Calling Itself Progressive; But Scepticism Is Really Reactionary. Scepticism Goes Back; It Attempts To Unsettle What Has Already Been Settled. Instead Of Trying To Break Up New Fields With Its Plough, It Simply Tries To Break Up The Plough.
Trying
Calling
Fields
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
Once Abolish The God, And The Government Becomes The God.
Government
Abolish
The Woman Does Not Work Because The Man Tells Her To Work And She Obeys. On The Contrary, The Woman Works Because She Has Told The Man To Work And He Hasn’t Obeyed.
Men
Doe
Contrary
Among The Rich You Will Never Find A Really Generous Man Even By Accident. They May Give Their Money Away, But They Will Never Give Themselves Away; They Are Egotistic, Secretive, Dry As Old Bones. To Be Smart Enough To Get All That Money You Must Be Dull Enough To Want It.
Smart
Men
Generous Man
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
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
It Is Hard To Make Government Representative When It Is Also Remote.
Government
Hard
Representatives
...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
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
Mr. Blatchford Says That There Was Not A Fall But A Gradual Rise. But The Very Word "rise" Implies That You Know Toward What You Are Rising. Unless There Is A Standard You Cannot Tell Whether You Are Rising Or Falling. But The Main Point Is That The Fall Like Every Other Large Path Of Christianity Is Embodied In The Common Language Talked On The Top Of An Omnibus. Anybody Might Say, "very Few Men Are Really Manly." Nobody Would Say, "very Few Whales Are Really Whaley."
Fall
Men
Whales
...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
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.
Equality
Discovery
Cost
[marxism Will] In A Generation Or So [go] Into The Limbo Of Most Heresies, But Meanwhile It Will Have Poisoned The Russian Revolution.
War
Revolution
Generations
I Suppose Every One Must Have Reflected How Primeval And How Poetical Are The Things That One Carries In One's Pocket; The Pocket-knife, For Instance, The Type Of All Human Tools, The Infant Of The Sword. Once I Planned To Write A Book Of Poems Entirely About Things In My Pockets. But I Found It Would Be Too Long; And The Age Of The Great Epics Is Past.
Book
Writing
Epic
A Tragedy Means Always A Mans Struggle With That Which Is Stronger Than Man.
Struggle
Mean
Men
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
Christianity Has Not Been Tried And Found Wanting; It Has Been Found Difficult And Not Tried.
Christian
Wisdom
Religious
There Is No Such Thing On Earth As An Uninteresting Subject; The Only Thing That Can Exist Is An Uninterested Person.
Inspirational
Earth
Artistic Temperament
The Real Trouble With This World Of Ours Is Not That It Is An Unreasonable World, Nor Even That It Is A Reasonable One. The Commonest Kind Of Trouble Is That It Is Nearly Reasonable, But Not Quite. ... It Looks Just A Little More Mathematical And Regular Than It Is; Its Exactitude Is Obvious, But Its Inexactitude Is Hidden; Its Wilderness Lies In Wait.
Real
Lying
Waiting
The Poor Have Sometimes Objected To Being Governed Badly; The Rich Have Always Objected To Being Governed At All.
Political
Politics
Poverty
All True Friendliness Begins With Fire And Food And Drink And The Recognition Of Rain Or Frost.
True Friend
Rain
Fire
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 Thing That Cannot Be Defined Is The First Thing; The Primary Fact.
Science
Technology
Firsts
A Sober Man May Become A Drunkard Through Being A Coward. A Brave Man May Become A Coward Through Being A Drunkard.
Men
Brave
Coward
Marriage Halves Our Griefs, Doubles Our Joys, And Quadruples Our Expenses
Grief
Inspiration
Joy
The Traveler Sees What He Sees, The Tourist Sees What He Has Come To See.
Inspirational
Funny
Travel
. . . For Friendship Implies Individuality; Whereas Comradeship Really Implies The Temporary Subordination, If Not The Temporary Swamping Of Individuality. Friends Are The Better For Being Two; But Comrades Are The Better For Being Two Million.
Friendship
Two
Individuality
It Is Always The Secure Who Are Humble.
Humble
Kids
Humility
Meaninglessness Does Not Come From Being Weary Of Pain. Meaninglessness Comes From Being Weary Of Pleasure.
Pain
Doe
Pleasure
I Say That A Man Must Be Certain Of His Morality For The Simple Reason That He Has To Suffer For It.
Simple
Men
Suffering
It Is Well Sometimes To Half Understand A Poem In The Same Manner That We Half Understand The World.
Half
World
Sometimes
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
There Are No Rules Of Architecture For A Castle In The Clouds.
Graduation
Hope
Carpe Diem
The Man Of The True Religious Tradition Understands Two Things: Liberty And Obedience. The First Means Knowing What You Really Want. The Second Means Knowing What You Really Trust.
Religious
Mean
Men
At Any Innocent Tea-table We May Easily Hear A Man Say, "life Is Not Worth Living." We Regard It As We Regard The Statement That It Is A Fine Day; Nobody Thinks That It Can Possibly Have Any Serious Effect On The Man Or On The World. And Yet If That Utterance Were Really Believed, The World Would Stand On Its Head.
Men
Thinking
Tea
Every Man Who Will Not Have Softening Of The Heart Must At Last Have Softening Of The Brain
Heart
Men
Brain
The Real Great Man Is The Man Who Makes Every Man Feel Great.
Real
Men
Greatness
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
Tolerance Is A Virtue Of People Who Don't Believe In Anything Anymore.
Believe
People
Tolerance
If A Rhinoceros Were To Enter This Restaurant Now, There Is No Denying He Would Have Great Power Here. But I Should Be The First To Rise And Assure Him That He Had No Authority Whatever.
Leadership
Firsts
Authority
The Golden Age Only Comes To Men When They Have Forgotten Gold.
Men
Age
Gold
Coincidences Are Spiritual Puns.
Spiritual
Wisdom
Destiny
The Real Trouble With This World Of Ours Is Not That It Is An Unreasonable One. The Trouble Is That It Is Nearly Reasonable, But Not Quite.
Real
World
Trouble
Coincidence Is A Spiritual Pun.
Spiritual
Definitions
Coincidence
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 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. Thus Some Scientists Care For Truth; And Their Truth Is Pitiless. Thus Some Humanitarians Only Care For Pity; And Their Pity (i Am Sorry To Say) Is Often Untruthful.
Christian
Sorry
Mad
Fallacies Do Not Cease To Be Fallacies Because They Become Fashions.
Fashion
Atheist
Catholic
From The Standpoint Of Any Sane Person, The Present Problem Of Capitalist Concentration Is Not Only A Question Of Law, But Of Criminal Law, Not To Mention Criminal Lunacy.
Law
Criminals
Problem
A Stiff Apology Is A Second Insult... The Injured Party Does Not Want To Be Compensated Because He Has Been Wronged; He Wants To Be Healed Because He Has Been Hurt.
Forgiveness
Im Sorry
Hurt
The Idea Of Private Property Universal But Private, The Idea Of Families Free But Still Families, Of Domesticity Democratic But Still Domestic, Of One Man One House - This Remains The Real Vision And Magnet Of Mankind. The World May Accept Something More Official And General, Less Human And Intimate. But The World Will Be Like A Broken-hearted Woman Who Makes A Humdrum Marriage Because She May Not Make A Happy One; Socialism May Be The World's Deliverance, But It Is Not The World's Desire.
Faith
Real
Inspiration
The Most Incredible Thing About Miracles Is That They Happen.
Miracle
Incredibles
Happens
A Man Will Not Roll In The Snow For A Stream Of Tendency By Which All Things Fulfill The Law Of Their Being. He Will Not Go Without Food In The Name Of Something, Not Ourselves, That Makes For Righteousness. He Will Do Things Like This, Or Pretty Nearly Like This, Under Quite A Different Impulse. He Will Do These Things When He Is In Love.
Faith
Inspiration
Men
Dipsomaniac And The Abstainer Are Not Only Both Mistaken, But They Both Make The Same Mistake. They Both Regard Wine As A Drug And Not As A Drink.
Mistake
Wine
Alcohol
If It's Worth Doing, It's Worth Doing Badly. (on Not Perfectionism To Put Things Off) .
Inspirational
Perfectionism
Not Perfect
Art Is Born When The Temporary Touches The Eternal.
Art
Born
Eternal
Nobody Understands The Nature Of The Church, Or The Ringing Note Of The Creed Descending From Antiquity, Who Does Not Realize That The Whole World Once Very Nearly Died Of Broadmindedness And The Brotherhood Of All Religions.
Brotherhood
Church
Doe
Blessed Is He That Expecteth Nothing, For He Shall Be Gloriously Surprised.
Blessed
Expectations
There Is No Logical Connection Between Flying And Laying Eggs.
Eggs
Flying
Connections
Literature Is A Luxury; Fiction Is A Necessity.
Inspirational
Book
Reading
The Only Thing That Has Kept The Race Of Men From The Mad Extremes Of The Convent And The Pirate-galley, The Night-club And The Lethal Chamber, Has Been Mysticism - The Belief That Logic Is Misleading, And That Things Are Not What They Seem.
Night
Men
Race
It Is Really Not So Repulsive To See The Poor Asking For Money As To See The Rich Asking For More Money. And Advertisement Is The Rich Asking For More Money.
Asking
Advertising
Rich
These Are The Days When The Christian Is Expected To Praise Every Creed Except His Own.
Christian
Religion
Morality
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
Jokes Are Generally Honest. Complete Solemnity Is Always Dishonest.
Honesty
Honest
Solemnity
A Turkey Is More Occult And Awful Than All The Angels And Archangels. In So Far As God Has Partly Revealed To Us An Angelic World, He Has Partly Told Us What An Angel Means. But God Has Never Told Us What A Turkey Means. And If You Go And Stare At A Live Turkey For An Hour Or Two, You Will Find By The End Of It That The Enigma Has Rather Increased Than Diminished.
Mean
Angel
Turkeys
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 Reformer Is Always Right About What's Wrong. However, He's Often Wrong About What Is Right.
Reformers
All Real Democracy Is An Attempt Like That Of A Jolly Hostess To Bring The Shy People Out.
Real
People
Democracy
This Is The Age In Which Thin And Theoretic Minorities Can Cover And Conquer Unconscious And Untheoretic Majorities.
Progress
Age
Minorities
I Think The Oddest Thing About The Advanced People Is That, While They Are Always Talking About Things As Problems, They Have Hardly Any Notion Of What A Real Problem Is.
Real
Thinking
Talking
We Are Passing Into A Social Phase In Which Unless A Heroic Effort Is Made For Human Dignity And Freedom, Gold Will Be The Sole Method Of Government And Therefore The Sole Standard Of Manners.
Government
Effort
Gold
There Is Only One Thing That Stands In Our Midst, Attenuated And Threatened, But Enthroned In Some Power Like A Ghost Of The Middle Ages: The Trade Unions.
Age
Unions
Ghost
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
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
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
A Catholic Is A Person Who Has Plucked Up Courage To Face The Incredible And Inconceivable Idea That Something Else May Be Wiser Than He Is.
Ideas
Catholic
May
And All Over The World, The Old Literature, The Popular Literature, Is The Same. It Consists Of Very Dignified Sorrow And Very Undignified Fun. Its Sad Tales Are Of Broken Hearts; Its Happy Tales Are Of Broken Heads.
Art
Fun
Broken
Do Not Free A Camel Of The Burden Of His Hump; You May Be Freeing Him From Being A Camel.
Freedom
Inspirational Life
Responsibility
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
The Repetition In Nature May Not Be A Mere Recurrence; It May Be A Theatrical Encore.
May
Recurrence
Repetition
The Reason That Angels Fly Is That They Take Themselves So Lightly.
Angel
Reason
Modern Masters Of Science Are Much Impressed With The Need Of Beginning All Inquiry With A Fact. The Ancient Masters Of Religion Were Quite Equally Impressed With That Necessity. They Began With The Fact Of Sin-a Fact As Practical As Potatoes. Whether Or Not Man Could Be Washed In Miraculous Waters, There Was No Doubt At Any Rate That He Wanted Washing.
Science
Men
Water
The Life Of A Thinking Man Will Probably Be Divided Into Two Parts -- The First In Which He Desires To Exterminate Modern Thinkers, And The Second In Which He Desires To Watch Them Exterminating Each Other. ... Suppose, For Instance, There Is An Old Story And A New Skeptic Who Is Skeptical Of The Story. We Have Only To Wait A Little While For A Yet Newer Skeptic Who Is Skeptical Of The Skeptic. He Will Probably Find The Old Notion Actually A Help In His New Notion. This Process Is An Abstract Truth Applying To Anything, Apart From Agreement Or Disagreement.
Truth
Men
Thinking
He Is A [sane] Man Who Can Have Tragedy In His Heart And Comedy In His Head.
Encouragement
Heart
Tragedy
A Great Classic Means A Man Whom One Can Praise Without Having Read.
Mean
Men
Classic
The Purpose Of Compulsory Education Is To Deprive The Common People Of Their Commonsense.
Education
School
People
We Are Talking About An Artist; And For The Enjoyment Of The Artist The Mask Must Be To Some Extent Moulded On The Face. What He Makes Outside Him Must Correspond To Something Inside Him; He Can Only Make His Effects Out Of Some Of The Materials Of His Soul.
Art
Soul
Faces
Great Truths Can Only Be Forgotten And Can Never Be Falsified.
Forgotten
The Humorous Look Of Children Is Perhaps The Most Endearing Of All The Bonds That Hold The Cosmos Together. Their Top-heavy Dignity Is More Touching Than Any Humility; Their Solemnity Gives Us More Hope For All Things Than A Thousand Carnivals Of Optimism; Their Large And Lustrous Eyes Seem To Hold All The Stars In Their Astonishment; Their Fascinating Absence Of Nose Seems To Give To Us The Most Perfect Hint Of The Humour That Awaits Us In The Kingdom Of Heaven.
Stars
Children
Humorous
If Men Will Not Be Governed By The Ten Commandments, They Shall Be Governed By The Ten Thousand Commandments
Men
Religion
Thousand
Lord! What A Strange World In Which A Man Cannot Remain Unique Even By Taking The Trouble To Go Mad!
Unique
Men
Mad
Do Not Look At The Faces In The Illustrated Papers. Look At The Faces In The Street.
Looks
Paper
Faces
The Simplification Of Anything Is Always Sensational.
Sensational
Simplification
Vigorous Organisms Talk Not About Their Processes, But About Their Aims.
Process
Aim
Vigorous
Comforts That Were Rare Among Our Forefathers Are Now Multiplied In Factories And Handed Out Wholesale; And Indeed, Nobody Nowadays, So Long As He Is Content To Go Without Air, Space, Quiet, Decency And Good Manners, Need Be Without Anything Whatever That He Wants; Or At Least A Reasonably Cheap Imitation Of It.
Air
Space
Long
Understanding Quotes: Their Essence and Application

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

1. Defining Quotes

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


2. The Importance of Quotes

2.1. Enhancing Credibility

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


2.2. Providing Evidence

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


2.3. Conveying Emotions and Perspectives

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


3. Types of Quotes

3.1. Direct Quotes

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


3.2. Indirect Quotes (Paraphrasing)

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


3.3. Block Quotes

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



4. Proper Usage of Quotes


4.1. Contextual Relevance

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


4.2. Integration into Your Writing

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


4.3. Attribution and Citation

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


5. Common Mistakes to Avoid


5.1. Overusing Quotes

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


5.2. Lack of Analysis

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


5.3. Misquoting or Taking Out of Context

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



6. Quotes in Different Contexts


6.1. Academic Writing

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


6.2. Journalism

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


6.3. Literature and Creative Writing

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



7. Punctuation and Formatting


Understanding the correct punctuation and formatting of quotes is essential:


Quotation Marks: Always enclose direct quotes within quotation marks.


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


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



8. Ethical Considerations


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

9. Tools for Managing Quotes


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



Conclusion


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


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