We Must Be Clear About What We Want To Paint. This Adds A Further Principle To Our Previous List Of Principles. We Have Said We Must Be Fond Of This World, Even In Order To Change It.

-Gilbert K. Chesterton

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We Must Be Clear

Gilbert K. Chesterton

We Must Be Clear About What We Want To Paint. This Adds A Further Principle To Our Previous List Of Principles. We Have Said We Must Be Fond Of This World, Even In Order To Change It.

Topic

Order

Society

World

More From Gilbert K. Chesterton

It Is The Decisive People Who Have Become Civilised; It Is The Indecisive, Otherwise Called The Higher Sceptics, Or The Idealistic Doubters, Who Have Remained Barbarians.

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Happiness Is A Mystery, Like Religion, And Should Never Be Rationalised.

Happiness

Literature

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A Nation Is Not Going Mad When It Does Extravagant Things, So Long As It Does Them In An Extravagant Spirit. But Whenever We See Things Done Wildly, But Taken Tamely, Then The State Is Growing Insane.

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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

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The More We Are Proud That The Bethlehem Story Is Plain Enough To Be Understood By The Shepherds, And Almost By The Sheep, The More Do We Let Ourselves Go, In Dark And Gorgeous Imaginative Frescoes Or Pageants About The Mystery And Majesty Of The Three Magian Kings.

Christmas

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Dark

[there Is] One Distinctly Human Thing - The Story. There Can Be As Good Science About A Turnip As About A Man. ... [or Philosophy, Or Theology] ...there Can Be, Without Any Question At All, As Good Higher Mathematics About A Turnip As About A Man. But I Do Not Think, Though I Speak In A Manner Somewhat Tentative, That There Could Be As Good A Novel Written About A Turnip As A Man.

Philosophy

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The Main Point Of Christianity Was This: That Nature Is Not Our Mother: Nature Is Our Sister.

Mother

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Laughter Has Something In It Common With The Ancient Words Of Faith And Inspiration; It Unfreezes Pride And Unwinds Secrecy; It Makes People Forget Themselves In The Presence Of Something Greater Than Themselves.

Laughter

Inspiration

Pride

Every Time A Man Knocks On A Brothel Door, He Is Really Knocking For God

Men

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The Difficulty Of Explaining ‘why I Am A Catholic’ Is That There Are Ten Thousand Reasons All Amounting To One Reason: That Catholicism Is True.

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Explaining

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

Thinking

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Only Poor Men Get Hanged.

Men

Poor

Poor Man

Contemporary Society Has Become Dry, Not For Lack Of Wonders But For Lack Of Wonder.

Integrity

Dry

Wonder

We Have Not Made Cricket And Football [soccer] Professional Because Of Any Astonishing Avarice Or New Vulgarity. We Have Made Them Professional Because We Would Have Them Perfect. We Have Dedicated Men To Them As To Some God Of Inhuman Excellence. We Care More For Football Than For The Fun Of Playing Football.

Soccer

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Football

A Fad Or Heresy Is The Exaltation Of Something Which Even If True, Is Secondary Or Temporary In Its Nature Against Those Things Which Are Essential And Eternal, Those Things Which Always Prove Themselves True In The Long Run. In Short, It Is The Setting Up Of The Mood Against The Mind.

Running

Long

Mind

Just The Other Day In The Underground I Enjoyed The Pleasure Of Offering My Seat To Three Ladies.

Food

Offering

Three

It Is Hard To Make Government Representative When It Is Also Remote.

Government

Hard

Representatives

Certain New Theologians Dispute Original Sin, Which Is The Only Part Of Christian Theology Which Can Really Be Proved.

Christian

Orthodoxy

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All Things Are From God; And Above All, Reason And Imagination And The Great Gifts Of The Mind. They Are Good In Themselves; And We Must Not Altogether Forget Their Origin Even In Their Perversion.

Imagination

Mind

Forget

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

My Brother, Cecil Edward Chesterton, Was Born When I Was About Five Years Old; And, After A Brief Pause, Began To Argue. He Continued To Argue To The End. I Am Glad To Think That Through All Those Years We Never Stopped Arguing; And We Never Once Quarreled. Perhaps The Principal Objection To A Quarrel Is That It Interrupts An Argument.

Brother

Thinking

Years

The One Perfectly Divine Thing, The One Glimpse Of God's Paradise Given On Earth, Is To Fight A Losing Battle - And Not Lose It.

Fighting

Battle

Glimpse

[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

Why Be Something To Everybody When You Can Be Everything To Somebody?

Love You

Comradeship Is Quite A Different Thing From Friendship. . .

Friendship

Different

Different Things

I Do Not Feel Any Contempt For An Atheist, Who Is Often A Man Limited And Constrained By His Own Logic To A Very Sad Simplification.

Atheist

Men

Logic

If I Can Put One Touch Of Rosy Sunset Into The Life Of Any Man Or Woman, I Shall Feel That I Have Worked With God.

Motivational

Sunset

Men

There Are Many Ways To Fall Down, But There's Only One Way To Stand Up Straight.

Fall

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Falling Down

Facts As Facts Do Not Always Create A Spirit Of Reality, Because Reality Is A Spirit.

Reality

Facts

Spirit

Self-denial Is The Test And Definition Of Self-government.

Self

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Humility Is The Luxurious Art Of Reducing Ourselves To A Point, Not To A Small Thing Or A Large One, But To A Thing With No Size At All, So That To It All The Cosmic Things Are What They Really Are - Of Immeasurable Stature.

Art

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Stick To The Man Who Looks Out Of The Window And Tries To Understand The World. Keep Clear Of The Man Who Looks In At The Window And Tries To Understand You.

Men

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Looks

Fallacies Do Not Cease To Be Fallacies Because They Become Fashions.

Fashion

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All Real Democracy Is An Attempt Like That Of A Jolly Hostess To Bring The Shy People Out.

Real

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Do Not Look At The Faces In The Illustrated Papers. Look At The Faces In The Street.

Looks

Paper

Faces

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

Comradeship Is Obvious And Universal And Open; But It Is Only One Kind Of Affection; It Has Characteristics That Would Destroy Any Other Kind. Anyone Who Has Known True Comradeship In A Club Or In A Regiment, Knows That It Is Impersonal.

Clubs

Kind

Affection

Chastity Does Not Mean Abstention From Sexual Wrong; It Means Something Flaming, Like Joan Of Arc.

Mean

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Arcs

Joy, Which Was The Small Publicity Of The Pagan, Is The Gigantic Secret Of The Christian.

Christian

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Secret

It Is The First Law Of Practical Courage. To Be In The Weakest Camp Is To Be In The Strongest School.

Courage

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Law

Islam Was Something Like A Christian Heresy. The Early Heresies Had Been Full Of Mad Reversals And Evasions Of The Incarnation, Rescuing Their Jesus From The Reality Of His Body Even At The Expense Of The Sincerity Of His Soul.

Christian

Jesus

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Art Consists Of Limitation. The Most Beautiful Part Of Every Picture Is The Frame.

Beauty

Beautiful

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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

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Tolerance Is A Virtue Of People Who Don't Believe In Anything Anymore.

Believe

People

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What Is The Good Of Telling A Community That It Has Every Liberty Except The Liberty To Make Laws? The Liberty To Make Laws Is What Constitutes A Free People.

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It Is Human To Err; And The Only Final And Deadly Error, Among All Our Errors, Is Denying That We Have Ever Erred.

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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.

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Four

Suppose, My Dear Chadd, Suppose It Is We Who Are The Idiots Because We Are Not Afraid Of Devils In The Dark?

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Devil

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Original Sin Is The Only Doctrine That's Been Empirically Validated By 2,000 Years Of Human History.

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There Is More Simplicity In The Man Who Eats Caviar On Impulse Than In The Man Who Eats Grape-nuts On Principle.

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A Good Civilisation Spreads Over Us Freely Like A Tree, Varying And Yielding Because It Is Alive. A Bad Civilisation Stands Up And Sticks Out Above Us Like An Umbrella-artificial, Mathematical In Shape; Not Merely Universal, But Uniform.

Civilization

Tree

Alive

If A Man Would Make His World Large, He Must Be Always Making Himself Small.

Men

World

Ifs

It Is Ludicrous To Suppose That The More Sceptical We Are The More We See Good In Everything. It Is Clear That The More We Are Certain What Good Is, The More We Shall See Good In Everything.

Certain

Skeptic

Clear

...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

Atheism Is Too Theological.

Atheism

Theological

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

What Is The Good Of Words If They Aren't Important Enough To Quarrel Over? Why Do We Choose One Word More Than Another If There Isn't Any Difference Between Them? If You Called A Woman A Chimpanzee Instead Of An Angel, Wouldn't There Be A Quarrel About A Word? If You're Not Going To Argue About Words, What Are You Going To Argue About? Are You Going To Convey Your Meaning To Me By Moving Your Ears? The Church And The Heresies Always Used To Fight About Words, Because They Are The Only Thing Worth Fighting About.

Moving

Angel

Fighting

Man Must Have Just Enough Faith In Himself To Have Adventures, And Just Enough Doubt Of Himself To Enjoy Them.

Adventure

Men

Doubt

There Are No Boring Subjects, Only Disinterested Minds.

Mind

Boring

Subjects

I Have Investigated The Dust-heaps Of Humanity, And Found A Treasure In All Of Them. I Have Found That Humanity Is Not Incidentally Engaged, But Eternally And Systematically Engaged, In Throwing Gold Into The Gutter And Diamonds Into The Sea.

Dust

Sea

Humanity

Right Is Right Even If Nobody Does It. Wrong Is Wrong Even If Everybody Is Wrong About It.

Doe

Moral

Sanity

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

All Literary Style, Especially National Style, Is Made Up Of Such Coincidences, Which Are A Spiritual Sort Of Puns. That Is Why Style Is Untranslatable.

Spiritual

Style

Coincidence

Happiness Is Not Only A Hope, But Also In Some Strange Manner A Memory ... We Are All Kings In Exile.

Kings

Memories

Strange

There Are Some Desires That Are Not Desirable.

Desire

Morality

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The Triangle Of Truisms, Of Father, Mother And Child, Cannot Be Destroyed; It Can Only Destroy Those Civilizations Which Disregard It.

Mother

Children

Father

The Family Is The Test Of Freedom; Because The Family Is The Only Thing That The Free Man Makes For Himself And By Himself.

Family

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Men

Every Man Is Important If He Loses His Life;and Every Man Is Funny If He Loses His Hat And Has To Run After It.

Running

Men

Important

There'd Be A Lot Less Scandal If People Didn't Idealize Sin And Pose As Sinners.

People

Scandal

Morality

In Every Serious Doctrine Of The Destiny Of Men, There Is Some Trace Of The Doctrine Of The Equality Of Men. But The Capitalist Really Depends On Some Religion Of Inequality. The Capitalist Must Somehow Distinguish Himself From Human Kind; He Must Be Obviously Above It Or He Would Be Obviously Below It.

Destiny

Men

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Though I Believe In Liberalism, I Find It Difficult To Believe In Liberals.

Believe

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Liberalism

It Has Been Often Said, Very Truly, That Religion Is The Thing That Makes The Ordinary Man Feel Extraordinary; It Is An Equally Important Truth That Religion Is The Thing That Makes The Extraordinary Man Feel Ordinary.

Men

Important

Ordinary

The Human Race Is Always Trying This Dodge Of Making Everything Entirely Easy; But The Difficulty Which It Shifts Off One Thing It Shifts To Another.

Race

Always Trying

Dodge

Science Boasts Of The Distance Of Its Stars; Of The Terrific Remoteness Of The Things Of Which It Has To Speak. But Poetry And Religion Always Insist Upon The Proximity, The Almost Menacing Closeness Of The Things With Which They Are Concerned. Always The Kingdom Of Heaven Is "at Hand."

Stars

Distance

Science

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

Mean

Appreciate

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

Humor Can Get In Under The Door While Seriousness Is Still Fumbling At The Handle

Doors

Seriousness

Handle

The Most Dangerous Criminal Now Is The Entirely Lawless Modern Philosopher. Compared To Him, Burglars And Bigamists Are Essentially Moral Men.

Philosophical

Men

Criminals

There Is Less Difference Than Many Suppose Between The Ideal Socialist System, In Which The Big Businesses Are Run By The State, And The Present Capitalist System, In Which The State Is Run By The Big Businesses.

Running

Differences

States

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

"are You A Devil?" "i Am A Man," Answered Father Brown Gravely; "and Therefore Have All Devils In My Heart."

Father

Heart

Men

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.

Selfish

Confused

Cities

What Embitters The World Is Not Excess Of Criticism, But Absence Of Self-criticism.

Self

Criticism

Excess

When Belief In God Becomes Difficult, The Tendency Is To Turn Away From Him; But In Heaven's Name To What?

Names

Heaven

Belief

A Puritan Is A Person Who Pours Righteous Indignation Into The Wrong Things.

Puritan

Righteous

Persons

Modern Man Is Educated To Understand Foreign Languages And Misunderstand Foreigners.

Men

Language

Modern

The Catholic Church Is Like A Thick Steak, A Glass Of Red Wine, And A Good Cigar.

Wine

Glasses

Catholic

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

There Is No Way In Which A Man Can Earn A Star Or Deserve A Sunset.

Stars

Sunset

Men

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

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

Garden

Heaven

We Are Christians And Catholics Not Because We Worship A Key, But Because We Have Passed A Door; And Felt The Wind That Is The Trumpet Of Liberty Blow Over The Land Of The Living.

Christian

Blow

Keys

A Man Making The Confession Of Any Creed Worth Ten Minutes' Intelligent Talk, Is Always A Man Who Gains Something And Gives Up Something. So Long As He Does Both He Can Create: For He Is Making An Outline And A Shape.

Giving Up

Wine

Intelligent

English Experience Indicates That When The Two Great Political Parties Agree About Something It Is Generally Wrong.

Party

Government

Two

Civilisation Is Not To Be Judged By The Rapidity Of Communication, But By The Value Of What Is Communicated.

Communication

Civilisation

Judged

There Is Only One Reason An Intelligent Person Doesn't Believe In Miracles. He Or She Believes In Materialism.

Believe

Intelligent

Miracle

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.

Flower

Men

Roots

The Whole Secret Of Mysticism Is This: That Man Can Understand Everything By The Help Of Something He Cannot Understand.

Men

Secret

Helping

The Primary Paradox Of Christianity Is That The Ordinary Condition Of Man Is Not His Sane Or Sensible Condition; That The Normal Itself Is An Abnormality.

Men

Ordinary

Normal

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

If A Man Says That He Is Jesus Christ, It Is No Answer To Tell Him That The World Denies His Divinity; For The World Denied Christ's.

Jesus

Men

World

Wherever There Is Animal Worship, There Is Human Sacrifice.

Sacrifice

Animal

Worship

Many Clever Men Like You Have Trusted To Civilization. Many Clever Babylonians, Many Clever Egyptians, Many Clever Men At The End Of Rome. Can You Tell Me, In A World That Is Flagrant With The Failures Of Civilisation, What There Is Particularly Immortal About Yours?

Clever

Men

Rome

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

There Are No New Lies, No New Heresies. Man Is Simply Not That Creative.

Lying

Men

Creative

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

Meaninglessness Does Not Come From Being Weary Of Pain. Meaninglessness Comes From Being Weary Of Pleasure.

Pain

Doe

Pleasure

I Represent The Jolly Mass Of Mankind. I Am The Happy And Reckless Christian.

Christian

Reckless

Mass

In A World Where Everything Is Ridiculous, Nothing Can Be Ridiculed. You Cannot Unmask A Mask.

World

Ridiculous

Mask

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

If A Man Does Not Talk To Himself, It Is Because He Is Not Worth Talking To.

Men

Talking

Doe

A Really Great Person Is The Person Who Makes Every Person Feel Great.

Life And Love

Great Person

Really Great

The Books That Influence The World Are Those That It Has Not Read.

Book

World

Influence

The Catholic Church Is The Only Thing That Saves Man From The Degrading Slavery Of Being A Child Of His Age.

Children

Men

Catholic

The Central Idea Of Poetry Is The Idea Of Guessing Right, Like A Child.

Children

Ideas

Guessing

A Strange Fanaticism Fills Our Time: The Fanatical Hatred Of Morality, Especially Of Christian Morality.

Christian

Hatred

Morality

We Actually Love Ourselves More Than We Love Joy.

Joy

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

If There Is One Thing Worse Than The Modern Weakening Of Major Morals, It Is The Modern Strengthening Of Minor Morals.

Morality

Modern

Strengthening

He Can Only Get Away From Death By Continually Stepping Within An Inch Of It.

Death

Courage

Inches

The True Object Of All Human Life Is Play. Earth Is A Task Garden; Heaven Is A Playground.

Fun

Inspirational Life

Garden

Dogma Does Not Mean The Absence Of Thought, But The End Of Thought.

Mean

Doe

Dogma

The Position We Have Now Reached Is This: Starting From The State, We Try To Remedy The Failures Of All The Families, All The Nurseries, All The Schools, All The Workshops, All The Secondary Institutions That Once Had Some Authority Of Their Own. Everything Is Ultimately Brought Into The Law Courts. We Are Trying To Stop The Leak At The Other End.

School

Law

Trying

It Is The Beginning Of All True Criticism Of Our Time To Realize That It Has Really Nothing To Say, At The Very Moment When It Has Invented So Tremendous A Trumpet For Saying It.

Power

Criticism

Speech

The Truth Is, Of Course, That The Curtness Of The Ten Commandments Is An Evidence, Not Of The Gloom And Narrowness Of A Religion, But, On The Contrary, Of Its Liberality And Humanity. It Is Shorter To State The Things Forbidden Than The Things Permitted; Precisely Because Most Things Are Permitted, And Only A Few Things Are Forbidden.

Christian

Humanity

Truth Is

[capitalism Is] That Commercial System In Which Supply Immediately Answers To Demand, And In Which Everybody Seems To Be Thoroughly Dissatisfied And Unable To Get Anything He Wants.

Answers

Demand

Want

Man Is Always Something Worse Or Something Better Than An Animal; And A Mere Argument From Animal Perfection Never Touches Him At All. Thus, In Sex No Animal Is Either Chivalrous Or Obscene. And Thus No Animal Invented Anything So Bad As Drunkeness - Or So Good As Drink.

Sex

Animal

Men

There Are Many Definite Methods, Honest And Dishonest, Which Make People Rich; The Only Instinct I Know Of Which Does It Is That Instinct Which Theological Christianity Crudely Describes As The Sin Of Avarice.

People

Doe

Honest

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

When You Have Really Exhausted An Experience You Always Reverence And Love It.

Love

Experience

Exhausted

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

A Mystic Is A Man Who Separates Heaven And Earth Even If He Enjoys Them Both.

Men

Heaven

Earth

Faith Is Always At A Disadvantage; It Is A Perpetually Defeated Thing Which Survives All Conquerors.

Defeated

Disadvantages

Conqueror

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

A Thing May Be Too Sad To Be Believed Or Too Wicked To Be Believed Or Too Good To Be Believed; But It Cannot Be Too Absurd To Be Believed In This Planet Of Frogs And Elephants, Of Crocodiles And Cuttle-fish.

Animal

Elephants

Wicked

Nothing Is Certain By Uncertainty.

Certain

Uncertainty

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

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

Science Only Means Knowledge; And For [greek] Ancients It Did Only Mean Knowledge. Thus The Favorite Science Of The Greeks Was Astronomy, Because It Was As Abstract As Algebra. ... We May Say That The Great Greek Ideal Was To Have No Use For Useful Things. The Slave Was He Who Learned Useful Things; The Freeman Was He Who Learned Useless Things. This Still Remains The Ideal Of Many Noble Men Of Science, In The Sense They Do Desire Truth As The Great Greeks Desired It; And Their Attitude Is An External Protest Against Vulgarity Of Utilitarianism.

Attitude

Learning

Mean

Plato Was Right, But Not Quite Right.

Plato

The Men Of The Clique Live Together Because They Have The Same Kind Of Soul, And Their Narrowness Is A Narrowness Of Spiritual Coherence And Contentment, Like That Which Exists In Hell . . .

Spiritual

Men

Soul

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

Free Verse Is Like Free Love; It Is A Contradiction In Terms.

Free Love

Contradiction

Term

The Men Of The East May Spell The Stars, And Times And Triumphs Mark, But The Men Signed Of The Cross Of Christ Go Gaily In The Dark.

Stars

Dark

Men

Cruelty Is, Perhaps, The Worst Kid Of Sin. Intellectual Cruelty Is Certainly The Worst Kind Of Cruelty.

Kids

Intellectual

Literature

I Don't Need A Church To Tell Me I'm Wrong Where I Already Know I'm Wrong; I Need A Church To Tell Me I'm Wrong Where I Think I'm Right

Thinking

Church

Needs

Vigorous Organisms Talk Not About Their Processes, But About Their Aims.

Process

Aim

Vigorous

The New School Of Art And Thought Does Indeed Wear An Air Of Audacity, And Breaks Out Everywhere Into Blasphemies, As If It Required Any Courage To Say A Blasphemy. There Is Only One Thing That It Requires Real Courage To Say, And That Is A Truism.

Courage

Art

Real

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

Either Criticism Is No Good At All (a Very Defensible Position) Or Else Criticism Means Saying About An Author The Very Things That Would Have Made Him Jump Out Of His Boots.

Mean

Criticism

Boots

It Is The Mark Of Our Whole Modern History That The Masses Are Kept Quiet With A Fight. They Are Kept Quiet By The Fight Because It Is A Sham-fight; Thus Most Of Us Know By This Time That The Party System Has Been Popular Only In The Sense That A Football Match Is Popular.

Football

Party

Fighting

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

There Are Those Who Hate Christianity And Call Their Hatred An All-embracing Love For All Religions.

Hate

If There Is A God

Christian Inspirational

When We Look Upon Lives So Human And Yet So Small, We Feel As If We Ourselves Were Enlarged To An Embarrassing Bigness Of Stature. We Feel The Same Kind Of Obligation To These Creatures That A Deity Might Feel If He Had Created Something That He Could Not Understand.

Deities

Looks

Might

As Long As The Vision Of Heaven Is Always Changing, The Vision Of Earth Will Be Exactly The Same. No Ideal Will Remain Long Enough To Be Realized, Or Even Partly Realized. The Modern Young Man Will Never Change His Environment; For He Will Always Change His Mind.

Men

Long

Heaven

Passion Makes Every Detail Important.

Passion

Important

Details

The Diseased Pride [of Artistic Individualists] Was Not Even Conscious Of A Public Interest, And Would Have Found All Political Terms Utterly Tasteless And Insignificant. It Was No Longer A Question Of One Man One Vote, But Of One Man One Universe.

Pride

Men

Political

There Is No Bigot Like The Atheist.

Atheist

Bigots

Nine Times Out Of Ten It Is The Coarse Word That Condemns An Evil, And The Refined Word That Excuses It.

Evil

Nine

Excuse

The Worst Moment For An Atheist Is When He Feels A Profound Sense Of Gratitude And Has No One To Thank.

Gratitude

Atheist

Worst Moments

Marriage Is An Adventure, Like Going To War.

Cute

Marriage

Funny Love

The Lunatic Is The Man Who Lives In A Small World But Thinks It Is A Large One; He Is The Man Who Lives In A Tenth Of The Truth, And Thinks It Is The Whole. The Madman Cannot Conceive Any Cosmos Outside A Certain Tale Or Conspiracy Or Vision.

Men

Thinking

Vision

To Complain That I Could Only Be Married Once Was Like Complaining That I Had Only Been Born Once.

Complaining

Married

Born

A Naked Moon Stood In A Naked Sky.

Moon

Sky

Naked

If The Apple Hit Newton’s Nose, Newton’s Nose Hit The Apple.

Apples

Noses

Newton

It Is True That I Am Of An Older Fashion; Much That I Love Has Been Destroyed Or Sent Into Exile.

Fashion

Culture

Exile

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

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.

Real

Men

Yellow

The Scientific Facts, Which Were Supposed To Contradict The Faith In The Nineteenth Century, Are Nearly All Of Them Regarded As Unscientific Fictions In The Twentieth Century.

Fiction

Facts

Century

The Human Race, To Which So Many Of My Readers Belong, Has Been Playing At Children's Games From The Beginning, And Will Probably Do It Till The End, Which Is A Nuisance For The Few People Who Grow Up.

Inspirational

Children

Growing Up

A Man Was Meant To Be Doubtful About Himself, But Undoubting About The Truth; This Has Been Exactly Reversed.

Men

Were Meant To Be

Doubtful

We Do Not Admire, We Hardly Excuse, The Fanatic Who Wrecks This World For Love Of The Other. But What Are We To Say Of The Fanatic Who Wrecks This World Out Of Hatred Of The Other? He Sacrifices The Very Existence Of Humanity To The Non-existence Of God. He Offers His Victims Not To The Altar, But Merely To Assert The Idleness Of The Altar And The Emptiness Of The Throne. He Is Ready To Ruin Even That Primary Ethic By Which All Things Live, For His Strange And Eternal Vengeance Upon Some One Who Never Lived At All.

Sacrifice

Hatred

Humanity

The Word 'good' Has Many Meanings. For Example, If A Man Were To Shoot His Grandmother At A Range Of Five Hundred Yards, I Should Call Him A Good Shot, But Not Necessarily A Good Man.

Grandmother

Men

Good Man

All Conservatism Is Based Upon The Idea That If You Leave Things Alone You Leave Them As They Are. But You Do Not. If You Leave A Thing Alone You Leave It To A Torrent Of Change.

Change

Ideas

Political

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

Great Truths Can Only Be Forgotten And Can Never Be Falsified.

Forgotten

All Men Are Ordinary Men; The Extraordinary Men Are Those Who Know It.

Men

Ordinary

Knows

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

You'll Never Find The Solution If You Don't See The Problem.

Problem

Solutions

Ifs

Art Is The Signature Of Man.

Art

Men

Signatures

What Affects Men Sharply About A Foreign Nation Is Not So Much Finding Or Not Finding Familiar Things; It Is Rather Not Finding Them In The Familiar Place.

Men

Familiar

Findings

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

You Have Not Wasted Your Time; You Have Helped To Save The World. We Are Not Buffoons, But Very Desperate Men At War With A Vast Conspiracy.

War

Men

World

But Those Dealing In The Actual Manufacture Of Mind Are Dealing In A Very Explosive Material. The Material Is Not Merely The Clay Of Which Man Is Master, But The Truths Or Semblances Of Truth Which Have A Certain Mastery Over Man. The Material Is Explosive Because It Must Be Taken Seriously. The Men Writing Books Really Are Throwing Bombs.

Book

Taken

Writing

The Best Way That A Man Could Test His Readiness To Encounter The Common Variety Of Mankind Would Be To Climb Down A Chimney Into Any House At Random, And Get On As Well As Possible With The People Inside. And That Is Essentially What Each One Of Us Did On The Day That He Was Born.

Men

People

House

The Disadvantage Of Men Not Knowing The Past Is That They Do Not Know The Present. History Is A Hill Or High Point Of Vantage, From Which Alone Men See The Town In Which They Live Or The Age In Which They Are Living.

Past

Men

Knowing

There Is One Thing Which Gives Radiance To Everything. It Is The Idea Of Something Around The Corner.

Hope

Ideas

Giving

It Is Only Great Men Who Take Up A Great Space By Not Being There.

Men

Space

Being There

It May Be A Mere Patriotic Bias, Though I Do Not Think So, But It Seems To Me That The English Aristocracy Is Not Only The Type, But Is The Crown And Flower Of All Actual Aristocracies; It Has All The Oligarchical Virtues As Well As All The Defects. It Is Casual, It Is Kind, It Is Courageous In Obvious Matters; But It Has One Great Merit That Overlaps Even These. The Great And Very Obvious Merit Of The English Aristocracy Is That Nobody Could Possibly Take It Seriously.

Flower

Patriotic

Thinking

Doing Nothing Is Sometimes One Of The Highest Of The Duties Of Man.

Faith

Inspiration

Men

One Can Hardly Think Too Little Of One's Self. One Can Hardly Think Too Much Of One's Soul.

Thinking

Self

Soul

If I Had Only One Sermon To Preach It Would Be A Sermon Against Pride.

Pride

Would Be

Preaching

This Is The Age In Which Thin And Theoretic Minorities Can Cover And Conquer Unconscious And Untheoretic Majorities.

Progress

Age

Minorities

Progress Is A Comparative Of Which We Have Not Settled The Superlative.

Progress Of Society

Progress

Cult

It Has Been Left To The Last Christians, Or Rather To The First Christians Fully Committed To Blaspheming And Denying Christianity, To Invent A New Kind Of Worship Of Sex, Which Is Not Even A Worship Of Life. It Has Been Left To The Very Latest Modernists To Proclaim An Erotic Religion Which At Once Exalts Lust And Forbids Fertility . . . The New Priests Abolish The Fatherhood And Keep The Feast - To Themselves.

Christian

Sex

Erotic

Christianity Even When Watered Down Is Hot Enough To Boil All Modern Society To Rags.

Rags

Hot

Christianity

If The Barricades Went Up In Our Streets And The Poor Became Masters, I Think The Priests Would Escape, I Fear The Gentlemen Would; But I Believe The Gutters Would Simply Be Running With The Blood Of Philanthropists.

Running

Fear

Believe

Christianity Satisfies Suddenly And Perfectly Man's Ancestral Instinct For Being The Right Way Up; Satisfies It Supremely In This, That By Its Creed Joy Becomes Something Gigantic, And Sadness Something Special And Small.

Christian

Sadness

Men

Boys Like Romantic [fairy] Tales; But Babies Like Realistic Tales - Because They Find Them Romantic...this Proves That Even Nursery Tales Only Echo An Almost Prenatal Leap Of Interest And Amazement. These Tales Say That Apples Were Golden Only To Refresh The Forgotten Moment When We Found That They Were Green. They Make Rivers Run With Wine Only To Make Us Remember, For One Wild Moment, That They Run With Water.

Running

Baby

Wine

Coincidence Is A Spiritual Pun.

Spiritual

Definitions

Coincidence

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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