quotes from classic

To love means loving the unlovable. To forgive means pardoning the unpardonable. Faith means believing the unbelievable. Hope means hoping when everything seems hopeless.

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'My country, right or wrong' is a thing no patriot would ever think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying 'My mother, drunk or sober.'

more quotes from Gilbert Keith Chesterton

People who make history know nothing about history. You can see that in the sort of history they make.

more quotes from Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Love means to love that which is unlovable; or it is no virtue at all.

more quotes from Gilbert Keith Chesterton

I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.

more quotes from Gilbert Keith Chesterton

There is a great deal of difference between an eager man who wants to read a book and the tired man who wants a book to read.

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Journalism is popular, but it is popular mainly as fiction. Life is one world, and life seen in the newspapers is another.

more quotes from Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Coincidences are spiritual puns.

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And when it rains on your parade, look up rather than down. Without the rain, there would be no rainbow.

more quotes from Gilbert Keith Chesterton

The honest poor can sometimes forget poverty. The honest rich can never forget it.

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An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered.

more quotes from Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it.

more quotes from Gilbert Keith Chesterton

I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite.

more quotes from Gilbert Keith Chesterton

It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it.

more quotes from Gilbert Keith Chesterton

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.

more quotes from Gilbert Keith Chesterton

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.

more quotes from Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Never invoke the gods unless you really want them to appear. It annoys them very much.

more quotes from Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Talk about the pews and steeples and the cash that goes therewith! But the souls of Christian people... chuck it, Smith!

more quotes from Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Brave men are all vertebrates; they have their softness on the surface and their toughness in the middle.

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Half a truth is better than no politics.

more quotes from Gilbert Keith Chesterton