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Tradition Is Only Democracy Extended Through Time; It May Be Defined As An Extension Of The Franchise. 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 The Small And Arrogant Oligarchy Of Those Who Are Merely Walking About. All Democrats Object To Men Being Disqualified By Accident Of Birth; Tradition Objects To Their Being Disqualified By Accident Of Death. Democracy Tells Us Not To Neglect A Good Man's Opinion, Even If He Is Our Father.
-Gilbert K. Chesterton
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Tradition Is Only Democracy

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Tradition Is Only Democracy Extended Through Time; It May Be Defined As An Extension Of The Franchise. 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 The Small And Arrogant Oligarchy Of Those Who Are Merely Walking About. All Democrats Object To Men Being Disqualified By Accident Of Birth; Tradition Objects To Their Being Disqualified By Accident Of Death. Democracy Tells Us Not To Neglect A Good Man's Opinion, Even If He Is Our Father.
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Men
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Looks
Sun
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
If You Convey To A Woman That Something Ought To Be Done, There Is Always A Dreadful Danger That She Will Suddenly Do It.
Done
Danger
Ought
Without Authority There Is No Liberty. Freedom Is Doomed To Destruction At Every Turn, Unless There Is A Recognized Right To Freedom. And If There Are Rights, There Is An Authority To Which We Appeal For Them.
Rights
Liberty
Authority
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
It Has Always Been One Of My Unclerical Sermons To Myself, That That Remark Which Peter Made On Seeing The Vision Of A Single Hour, Ought To Be Made By Us All, In Contemplating Every Panoramic Change In The Long Vision We Call Life... "it Is Good For Us To Be Here - It Is Good For Us To Be Here", Repeating Itself Eternally.
Faith
Inspiration
Long
To Love Means Loving The Unlovable. To Forgive Means Pardoning The Unpardonable. Faith Means Believing The Unbelievable. Hope Means Hoping When Everything Seems Hopeless.
Love
Inspirational
Success
Boyhood Is A Most Complex And Incomprehensible Thing. Even When One Has Been Through It, One Does Not Understand What It Was. A Man Can Never Quite Understand A Boy, Even When He Has Been The Boy.
Son
Men
Boys
The Most Valuable Book We Can Read, About Countries We Have Visited, Is That Which Recalls To Us Something That We Did Notice, But Did Not Notice That We Noticed.
Country
Book
Valuable
The Man Who Kills A Man Kills A Man. The Man Who Kills Himself Kills All Men. As Far As He Is Concerned, He Wipes Out The World.
Suicide
Suicidal
Men
The Men Who Really Believe In Themselves Are All In Lunatic Asylums.
Military
Believe
Army
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
Whatever Else We May Say Of Our Own Age, For Good Or Evil, Nobody Is Likely To Call It An Age Of Reason.
Evil
Age
May
If We Could Destroy Custom At A Blow And See The Stars As A Child Sees Them, We Should Need No Other Apocalypse.
Inspirational
Nature
Stars
Even The Moon Is Only Poetical Because There Is A Man In The Moon.
Moon
Men
Man In The Moon
The Most Important Fact About The Subject Of Education Is That There Is No Such Thing. Education Is Not A Subject And It Does Not Deal In Subjects. It Is Instead The Transfer Of A Way Of Life.
Important
Doe
Way
Silver Is Sometimes More Valuable Than Gold, That Is, In Large Quantities.
Gold
Sometimes
Silver
And We Were Angry And Poor And Happy, And Proud Of Seeing Our Names In Print.
Names
Proud
Poor
Silence Is The Unbearable Repartee.
Silence
Unbearable
Silence Is
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
One Elephant Having A Trunk Was Odd; But All Elephants Having Trunks Looked Like A Plot.
Elephants
Plot
Odd
I Am More Than A Devil; I Am A Man. I Can Do The One Thing Which Satan Himself Cannot Do— I Can Die.
Men
Devil
Satan
Gratitude, Being Nearly The Greatest Of Human Duties, Is Also Nearly The Most Difficult.
Gratitude
Duty
Difficult
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
To Be Clever Enough To Get All That Money, One Must Be Stupid Enough To Want It.
Funny
Money
Clever
If Man Is Not The Image Of God, Then He Is A Disease Of The Dust.
Men
Dust
Disease
The Point Is Not That This World Is Too Sad To Love Or Too Glad Not To Love; The Point Is That When You Do Love A Thing, Its Gladness Is A Reason For Loving It, And Its Sadness A Reason For Loving It More.
Sadness
World
Reason
In Truth, There Are Only Two Kinds Of People; Those Who Accept Dogma And Know It, And Those Who Accept Dogma And Don't Know It.
Two
People
Dogma
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
The Perils, Rewards, Punishments, And Fulfillments Of An Adventure Must Be Real, Or The Adventure Is Only A Shifting And Heartless Nightmare. If I Bet I Must Be Made To Pay, Or There Is No Poetry In Betting. If I Challenge I Must Be Made To Fight, Or There Is No Poetry In Challenging. If I Vow To Be Faithful I Must Be Cursed When I Am Unfaithful, Or There Is No Fun Vowing.
Fun
Real
Adventure
The Catholic Church Is Like A Thick Steak, A Glass Of Red Wine, And A Good Cigar.
Wine
Glasses
Catholic
A Really Great Person Is The Person Who Makes Every Person Feel Great.
Life And Love
Great Person
Really Great
The Purpose Of Compulsory Education Is To Deprive The Common People Of Their Commonsense.
Education
School
People
The Act Of Defending Any Of The Cardinal Virtues Has Today All The Exhilaration Of A Vice.
Vices
Today
Exhilaration
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
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
Life Is Indeed Terribly Complicated—to A Man Who Has Lost His Principles.
Men
Principles
Life Is
I Entertain A Private Suspicion That Physical Sports Were Much More Really Effective And Beneficent When They Were Not Taken Quite So Seriously. One Of The First Essentials Of Sport Being Healthy Is That It Should Be Delightful; It Is Rapidly Becoming A False Religion With Austerities And Prostrations.
Sports
Taken
Healthy
[buddhism And Christianity] Are In One Sense Parallel And Equal; As A Mound And A Hollow, As A Valley And A Hill. There Is A Sense In Which That Sublime Despair Is The Only Alternative To That Divine Audacity. It Is Even True That The Truly Spiritual And Intellectual Man Sees It As Sort Of Dilemma; A Very Hard And Terrible Choice. There Is Little Else On Earth That Can Compare With These For Completeness. And He Who Does Not Climb The Mountain Of Christ Does Indeed Fall Into The Abyss Of Buddha.
Spiritual
Fall
Buddhism
The Cosmos Is About The Smallest Hole That A Man Can Hide His Head In.
Men
Cosmos
Literature
(tradition) Is The Democracy Of The Dead.
Democracy
Tradition
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
Of Being Strong And Brave. The Strong Can Not Be Brave. Only The Weak Can Be Brave; And Yet Again, In Practice, Only Those Who Can Be Brave Can Be Trusted, In Time Of Doubt, To Be Strong.
Inspirational
Strong
Practice
Stated Baldly, Charity Certainly Means One Of Two Things–pardoning Unpardonable Acts, Or Loving Unlovable People.
Mean
Two
People
Artistic Temperament Is The Disease That Afflicts Amateurs.
Writing
Literature
Disease
You Never Know The Best About Men Until You Know The Worst About Them.
Men
Worst
Knows
The English Are No Nearer Than They Were A Hundred Years Ago To Knowing What Jefferson Really Meant When He Said That God Had Created All Men Equal.
Equality
Men
Knowing
In Anything That Does Cover The Whole Of Your Life - In Your Philosophy And Your Religion - You Must Have Mirth. If You Do Not Have Mirth You Will Certainly Have Madness.
Philosophy
Doe
Mirth
In Matters Of Truth The Fact That You Don't Want To Publish Something Is, Nine Times Out Of Ten, A Proof That You Ought To Publish It.
Writing
Want
Matter
Experience Which Was Once Claimed By The Aged Is Now Claimed Exclusively By The Young.
Literature
Young
The Voice Of The Special Rebels And Prophets, Recommending Discontent, Should, As I Have Said, Sound Now And Then Suddenly, Like A Trumpet. But The Voices Of The Saints And Sages, Recommending Contentment, Should Sound Unceasingly, Like The Sea.
Sea
Voice
Special
The Most Dangerous Criminal Now Is The Entirely Lawless Modern Philosopher. Compared To Him, Burglars And Bigamists Are Essentially Moral Men.
Philosophical
Men
Criminals
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.
Morning
Pain
Mistake
White... Is Not A Mere Absence Of Colour; It Is A Shining And Affirmative Thing, As Fierce As Red, As Definite As Black... God Paints In Many Colours; But He Never Paints So Gorgeously, I Had Almost Said So Gaudily, As When He Paints In White.
Flower
Color White
Shining
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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