Gilbert Keith Chesterton: aphorisms. Aphorisms and quotes of Chesterton Arrogant yet another insult Gilbert Keith Chesterton

CHESTERTON Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) - English writer and thinker. * * * I owe my success to the fact that I listened carefully to everyone useful advice and then did the exact opposite. What you think about when you fail determines how soon you

• Actors who can't act believe in themselves; and bankrupt.
• Anarchy and creativity are one. These are synonyms. The one who threw the bomb is a poet and an artist, for a great moment is above all for him.
• English radicalism has always been more of an attitude than a conviction; if it were a conviction, it could win.
• Artistic temperament is a malady that amateurs suffer from.
• Architecture is the alphabet of giants, the greatest system of visible symbols ever created.
• The poor sometimes rebelled, and only against bad government; rich - always and against anyone.
• Without education, we are in terrible, mortal danger of taking educated people seriously.
• Adventures can be crazy, but the hero must be reasonable.
• The Bible tells us to love our neighbors as well as our enemies; probably because for the most part they are the same people.
• Charity is the ability to protect what is indefensible.
• Most modern philosophers are ready to sacrifice happiness for the sake of progress, while happiness alone is the meaning of all progress. (essay "On the Perversion of Truth")
• Buddhism is not a faith. Buddhism is doubt.
• In great battles, it is not uncommon for the vanquished to win. Those who were defeated by the end of the battle triumphed at the end of the case.
• A great work always contains the simplest truth for the simplest reading.
• Nine times out of ten, it is the wife who hates the wife's lover the most.
• In a woman there is more immediate, momentary strength, which is called enterprise; in a man there is more latent stored power, which is called laziness ...
• In love, the lender shares the joy of the debtor.
• In love, the lender shares the joy of the debtor... We are not generous enough to be ascetics.
• In the diversity and cruelty of ethical prohibitions, extreme moral promiscuity and hypocrisy are manifested.
• In the rapture of victory, mistakes are forgotten and extremes arise.
• You seem to think that the most amusing thing is to stay decorous in the streets and at gala dinners, and at home, near the fireplace (you are right - the fireplace is within my means) to make the guests laugh until they drop. But that's what everyone does. Take anyone - in public he is serious, but at home - a comedian. A sense of humor tells me that it should be the other way around, that one should be a jester in public and sedate at home.
• Only one biography is possible - an autobiography; the list of other people's actions and emotions is not a biography, but zoology, a description of the habits of an outlandish beast.
• Fairy stories are more than true, not because they lie that dragons exist, but because they claim the dragon can be defeated.
• A thief honors property. He just wants to appropriate it in order to honor it even more.
• Thieves respect property. They just want her to be theirs so they can respect her even more.
• The upbringing of children depends entirely on the attitude of adults towards them, and not on the attitude of adults to the problems of education.
• All people who really believe in themselves are in a madhouse.
• All human troubles come from the fact that we enjoy what we should use, and we use what we should enjoy.
• The whole difference between creation and creation boils down to the following: a creation can only be loved by one who has already been created, while a creation is loved as yet uncreated.
• Any conservatism is based on the fact that if everything is left as it is, everything will remain in its place. But it's not. If at least one thing is left in its place, it will undergo the most incredible changes.
• The ultimate goal of travel is not to see a foreign country, but to see one's own country as a foreign one.
• The newspaper, coming out extremely quickly, is interesting even for its miscalculations; the encyclopedia, coming out extremely slowly, is not interesting even for its discoveries.
• Newspapers don't just report news, they also present everything in the form of news.
• The main sin of journalism is that in his articles the newspaperman exposes himself in a false light.
• The person who mechanically eats caviar behaves much more naturally than the one who does not eat grapes on principle.
• It's not that the world has become much worse, but that the coverage of events has become much better.
• It's not that they can't see the solution. The thing is, they can't see the problem.
• Democracy means rule by the uneducated, aristocracy means rule by the poorly educated.
• Democrats advocate equal birth rights. Tradition advocates equality after death.
• For the childish nature of a pessimist, every change of fashion is the end of the world.
• For a poet, the joy of life is the cause of faith, for a saint it is its fruit.
• The worst thing for the oppressed is nine days out of ten when they are not oppressed.
• For a man of passion, love and peace are a mystery; for a sensitive man, they are a truth as old as the world.
• Friends love you just the way you are; your wife loves you and wants to make another person out of you.
• ... Fools are drawn to intelligence like cats to fire.
• The only true good is unrequited debt.
• The only disadvantage of our democracy is that it does not tolerate equality.
• The only way to catch a train is to miss the previous one.
• The only chance to stay alive is not to hold on to life.
• If we called cabbage a cactus, we would immediately notice a lot of amusing things in it.
• If you are told that an object is too small or too large, too red or too green, too bad in one sense and just as bad in the opposite, you know: there is nothing better than this object!
• If you do not feel like breaking even one of the ten commandments, then something is wrong with you.
• If you do not understand a person, you do not have the right to condemn him, and if you understand, then, quite possibly, you will not want to do this.
• If you do not want to break the ten commandments, then something is wrong with you.
• If a woman becomes a comrade, it is quite possible that she will be given a comradely knee in the ass.
• If the pilot believes in immortality, then the lives of passengers are in danger.
• If something is really worth doing, it's worth doing it badly.
• There are only three things in the world that women do not understand: they are Liberty, Equality and Fraternity.
• Life is always serious, but it is impossible to live always seriously.
• Life is too good to enjoy.
• Journalism is when they say: *Lord John is dead* to people who didn't even know that Lord John lived.
• Going into politics is like blowing your nose or writing to your fiancee. You have to do it yourself, even if you don't know how.
• Evil creeps up like a disease. Good comes running out of breath like a doctor.
• The golden rule of ethics is that there is no golden rule... The fact that there is no golden rule is also a rule, only not golden, but iron.
• Out of pure philanthropy, and hate for a short time.
• By mocking limitations, we ourselves are in serious danger of becoming limited.
• Changes in society, called fashion, are possible only because there are two funny features in people. First, so many things happen to every person that he will always remember at least something that foreshadowed the current turn. Secondly, almost everyone sees the past wrong, and in a biased memory this detail seems extremely important.
• Studying people by observing your contemporaries is like looking at mountains through a magnifying glass; to study them, looking into the distance of the past, is like looking at them through a telescope.
• It is in seriousness that the frivolity of our society, which has long forgotten how to laugh at itself, is manifested most of all.
• He had more than enough intelligence; a person endowed with such intelligence rises high in the ranks and slowly descends into a coffin surrounded by honors, without enlightening anyone or even amusing anyone.
• Intellectuals are divided into two categories: some worship the intellect, others use it.
• Art is always a limitation. The meaning of any picture is in its frame.
• Every politician is a promising politician.
• Everyone talks about public opinion and acts on behalf of public opinion, that is, on behalf of the opinion of everyone minus his own.
• Everyone wants to be informed honestly, impartially, truthfully - and in full accordance with his views.
• What is the point of fighting against a stupid tyrant in London, if the same tyrant is omnipotent in the family?
• Carlyle said that most people are fools; Christianity, on the other hand, expressed itself more precisely and more categorically: everyone is fools.
• We call a classic a writer who can be praised without reading.
• When they say that the Boer War must not be scolded until it is over, it is not even worth answering; one might as well say that one should not block the mother's path to the cliff until she has fallen.
• When triumph is the measure of everything, fans of success cannot wait. As long as hope does remain, it is regarded as banal and vulgar; and only when things are hopeless does hope begin to gain strength. Like all Christian virtues, it is both reckless and obligatory.
• When humanity no longer produces happy people, it begins to produce optimists.
• The comedy of a man survives his tragedy.
• Blasphemy dies with religion; if you doubt this, try to blaspheme against Odin.
• Critics ignore the sage advice not to throw stones if you live in a greenhouse.
• Round fools are drawn to the intellect like cats to fire.
• It's easy to be crazy; it's easy to be a heretic.
• It's easy to be difficult, but it's very hard to be easy. Strive for good.
• The frivolity of our society is manifested in the fact that it has long forgotten how to laugh at itself.
• Literature and fiction are completely different things. Literature is only a luxury, fiction is a necessity.
• Any fashion is a form of madness. Christianity is unfashionable because it is sound.
• Love does not blind where there! - love binds, and the tighter you are bound, the clearer you see.
• Love, by its very nature, binds itself, and the institution of marriage has only rendered the common man a service by taking him at his word.
• People are afraid of the human skeleton. In fact, the fear of the skeleton is not the fear of death at all. Man, to his shame and glory, is not so afraid of death as of humiliation. And the skeleton reminds him that inside he is shamelessly funny and rather ugly.
• People usually quarrel because they don't know how to argue.
• People who are sentimental every day and hour are the most dangerous enemies of society. Dealing with them is like watching an endless series of poetic sunsets early in the morning.
• The small circle is as infinite as the big one, but not as big.
• Materialists and madmen know no doubts.
• I am always struck to the depths of my soul by the strange property of my compatriots: unjustified arrogance combined with even more unjustified modesty.
• The world trembled, and the sun was darkened not when God was crucified, but when a cry was heard from the cross that God had been abandoned by God.
• Many detective novels fail precisely because the criminal owes nothing to the plot other than the need to commit the crime.
• Many who are capable of writing an epic poem are not capable of writing an epigram.
• It seems to many that women would bring meekness or sensitivity to politics. But a woman is dangerous in politics because she loves men's methods too much.
• The humble speak much; the proud take too much care of themselves.
• For many hours he stood on the lawn, watching the breaking of the bottles and breaking the barrels, and enjoying that fanatical joy that neither food, nor wine, nor women could give to his strange, cold soul.
• My opinion about Poland has been formed as a result of observing those who revile it. I came to one, in my opinion, indisputable conclusion that the ill-wishers of Poland, as a rule, are also fierce enemies of generosity and courage. Every time I encountered such individuals who amuse their slavish souls through usury and the cult of terror, mired in the swamp of materialistic politics, I found in them, in addition to the above-mentioned qualities, also a passionate hatred for Poland.
• Silence is an unbearable remark.
• Men are people, but Man is a woman.
• Music during dinner is an insult to both the cook and the violinist.
• We are not generous enough to be ascetics.
• We ourselves make friends, we ourselves create enemies, and only our neighbors are from God.
• We are so steeped in morbid prejudices, we respect insanity so much, that a sane person frightens us like a lunatic.
• We joke about the deathbed, but not at the deathbed. Life is always serious, but it is impossible to live always seriously.
• There are no words in the world that can express the difference between loneliness and friendship.
• There is no such thing as an uninteresting topic in the world. But there is such a thing as an indifferent person.
• Hope is the ability to fight in a hopeless situation.
• An arrogant apology is another insult.
• Finding the truth with the help of logic is possible only on the condition that it has already been found without the help of logic.
• Violence against a person is not violence, but rebellion, for every person is a king.
• Our actions and thoughts are determined by faith, especially when we do not believe in anything.
• One should not think that this or that thought did not occur to the great ones: it came and found many better thoughts there, ready to beat the fool out of it.
• You don't need a revolution to come to democracy. Democracy is needed for a revolution to take place.
• I have no doubt that Saint George, killing the snake, was scared to death of the princess.
• It's not that the world is much worse, but the coverage is much better.
• It is impossible to admire that in which there is no completeness. That is why not a single crowd of ideas about a gradual moral change or progress leading to an unknown destination did not take hold.
• You can't go crazy all at once. Madness loses its moral value if no one marvels at it.
• ... There is no person in the world who could live without once plunging into fantasies, never once surrendering to the imagination, the romance of life, because in dreams he finds that shelter in which his mind will find rest.
• It is not difficult to see why the legend deserved more respect than history. The whole village creates a legend - a lone madman writes a book.
• No war deserves justification, except a defensive war. And a defensive war, by its very nature and definition, is the kind of war from which a man comes back beaten, bleeding and unable to boast of anything other than the fact that he managed to survive.
• Never break a fence without knowing why it was put up.
• Nothing brings more despondency to our age than amusement.
• You need to learn to be happy in moments of rest, when you remember that you are alive, and not in moments of stormy life, when you forget about it.
• Anything can be said about a madman, except that his actions are without reason. On the contrary, the madman sees the cause in everything.
• They don’t argue about tastes: because of tastes they scold, quarrel and swear.
• It is customary to talk about laws as something cold and shy. In fact, only in a wild impulse, mad and intoxicated with freedom, people can create laws. When people are tired, they fall into anarchy; when they are strong and cheerful, they invariably create restrictions and rules.
• The most intimate are told only to complete strangers.
• The usual opinion about madness is misleading: it is not logic that one loses at all; it loses everything but logic.
• It's one thing to love people, quite another to be a philanthropist.
• He felt in all its fullness that joy, which is unknown to the proud; joy that borders on humiliation, no - which is inseparable from it. It is known to those who have escaped death, and to those to whom love has returned, and to those whose iniquities are covered.
• He realized what all romantics have long known: that adventures happen not on sunny days, but on gray days. Strain a monotonous string to failure, and it will break so sonorously, as if a song has sounded.
• ... They forgot an important force - newsmen. They forgot that in our day (perhaps for the first time in history) there are people who are not concerned with the fact that some event is moral or immoral, not with the fact that it is beautiful or ugly, not with the fact that it is useful or harmful, but simply because it happened.
• They (modern philosophers) subordinate the good to expediency, although every good is an end, and all expediency is nothing more than a means to achieve this goal.
• Orthodoxy is normality, health, and health is more interesting and harder than madness.
• Orthodoxy is normality, health, and health is more interesting and harder than madness. It's easy to be crazy; it's easy to be a heretic.
• From the eyes to the heart there is a road that does not pass through the intellect.
• Putting aside vanity and false modesty (which healthy people always use as a joke), I must say in all frankness: my contribution to literature is that I distorted some very good ideas of my time.
• The paradox is reminiscent of a forgotten truth.
• The paradox of courage is that you should not care too much about your life even in order to save it.
• Drink when you are happy and never drink when you are unhappy.
• The first of the most democratic doctrines is that all people are interesting.
• Sadness is the other side of joy.
• We only truly remember what we have forgotten.
• Only those men who are not afraid of women are truly cowardly.
• victory over the barbarians. exploitation of the barbarians. Alliance with the barbarians. Barbarian victory. Such is the fate of the empire.
• Believe me, it's not people with a rich imagination who go crazy. Even in the most tragic state of mind, they do not lose their minds. You can always shake them up, wake them up from a terrible dream, beckoning with brighter views, because they have imagination. People go crazy without imagination. Stubborn Stoics, devoted to one idea and taking it too literally. Silencers who pout-pout boil until they explode.
• The pursuit of health always leads to unhealthy things. You can't obey nature, you can't worship - you can only rejoice.
• We only truly remember what we have forgotten.
• To constantly be exposed to dangers that do not threaten us, to take oaths that will not bind us, to defy enemies that do not fear us - this is the false tyranny of decadence, which is called freedom.
• Why don't we argue about words? What then is there to argue about? Why are we given words if we cannot argue about them? Why do we prefer one word over another? If the poet calls his lady not an angel, but a monkey, can she find fault with the word? What are you going to argue about, if not with words? Ear movements?
• The holiday, like liberalism, means the freedom of man. A miracle is the freedom of God.
• Before, "compromise" meant that half a loaf of bread was better than nothing. For today's politicians, "compromise" means that half a loaf is better than a whole loaf.
• The old idealist Republicans used to found democracy on the assumption that all people were equally intelligent. However, I assure you: a strong and sound democracy is based on the fact that all people are the same blockheads.
• The criminal is the creative artist; the detective is just a critic.
• Adventures can be crazy, their hero must be reasonable.
• Progress and expediency, by their very nature, are only a means to the attainment of the good.
• Ordinary people will always be sentimental - sentimental is the one who does not hide his innermost feelings, who does not try to invent a new way of expressing them.
• Psychoanalysis is confession without absolution.
• A puritan is a person who pours out righteous indignation at the wrong things.
• The Puritan seeks to understand the truth; the Catholic is content that it exists.
• The traveler sees what he sees; The tourist sees what he came to see.
• Traveling develops the mind, if, of course, you have one.
• Since a person learns to play for his own pleasure, why shouldn't he learn to think for his own pleasure?
• The growing need for a strong man is an irrefutable sign of weakness.
• The speech needs a captivating beginning and a compelling ending. The task of a good speaker is to bring these two things as close as possible.
• The human race, and a considerable proportion of my readers belong to it, has been committed to children's games for centuries and will never leave them, don't be angry those few who for some reason managed to grow up.
• A novel in which there is no death seems to me a novel in which there is no life.
• By itself, every person seems to be a creature, perhaps a reasonable one: he eats, and sleeps, and makes plans. What about humanity? It is changeable and mysterious, fastidious and charming. In a word, people are mostly men, but Man is a woman.
• The most unfortunate person in the world is an atheist, he sees the sea sunset, and he has no one to thank for this beauty.
• Freedom is the artist in man...
• Today I saw something worse than death. This is called the world.
• Serious doubts are most often caused by insignificant trifles.
• The strength of any artist is in the ability to control, to tame his intemperance.
• Fairy tales do not tell children that there are dragons - children themselves know about it. Fairy tales say that dragons can be slain.
• Speed, as you know, is known in comparison: when two trains move at the same speed, it seems that both are standing still. Similarly, a society: it stands still if all its members are worn like clockwork.
• Following tradition means giving your votes to the most mysterious party - the party of our ancestors.
• Listening to music while eating is an insult to the cook and the violinist.
• You can laugh at anything, but not at any time. We joke about the deathbed, but not at the deathbed. Life is always serious, but it is impossible to live always seriously.
• The snob claims that only on his head is a real hat; reasoner insists that only under his hat is a real head.
• The modern world is not destined to see the future if we do not understand that instead of striving for everything that is extraordinary and exciting, it is wiser to turn to what is considered boring.
• The modern city is ugly not because it is a city, but because it is a jungle...
• A modern critic thinks something like this: “Of course I don't like green cheese. But I really like beige sherry.”
• Haste is bad already because it takes a lot of time.
• Try to keep a sense of proportion and - a sense of humor!
• Suffering from his fear and hopelessness powerfully attracts a young and inexperienced artist, just as a schoolboy paints notebooks with devils, skeletons and gallows.
• The desire for free love is tantamount to the desire to become a married bachelor or a white negro.
• Crazy people are serious; they go crazy for lack of humour.
• A madman is a person who has lost everything but his mind.
• There is a big difference between a person who wants to read a book and a person who needs a book to read.
• There are many misconceptions about friendly conversation, and even more so about intimate conversation. People rarely tell the truth when they are even modestly talking about themselves; but much is revealed when one speaks of something else.
• Happy is the one who saved the childish spontaneity - such a person saves not only his own soul, but also his life.
• Now they say that heresy cannot be punished. I often wonder if we have the right to punish for anything else.
• Tolerance is a virtue of people without conviction.
• What we call "progress" is only a comparative degree of which there is no superlative.
• Only that religion is good, over which you can make fun of.
• Only someone who knows nothing about cars will try to drive without gasoline; only he who does not understand anything in the mind will try to think without a firm, undeniable foundation.
• The ardor with which people pursue pleasure is the best proof that they are not able to find it.
• He who wants everything wants nothing.
• “That person is the most dangerous of all,” the old man remarked without moving, “who has one thing and only one thing on his mind. I myself was once dangerous.
• The hardest thing is to really love what you love.
• Lord Ivywood had a defect, common to many people who learned the world from books - he did not suspect that it was not only possible, but necessary to know something differently.
• A killer kills a man, a suicide kills humanity.
• The ability to fight in circumstances that inspire nothing but utter despair.
• It is all the easier to establish an indisputable truth in a dispute because it does not exist in nature.
• Fact is what a person owes to the world, while fantasy, fiction is what the world owes to a person.
• A fanatic is one who takes his own opinion seriously.
• Good man easy to recognize: he has sadness in his heart and a smile on his face.
• A good novel tells the truth about its hero, a bad one tells the truth about its author.
• Although I do not at all believe that we should eat beef without mustard, I am quite convinced that there is a much more serious danger these days: the desire to eat mustard without beef.
• Courage: An intense desire to live, taking the form of a willingness to die.
• A Christian is indeed worse than a pagan, a Spaniard worse than an Indian, and even a Roman worse than a Carthaginian, but only in one sense. He is worse because his direct business is to be better.
• The Christian ideal is not something that has been striven for and not achieved; it is something that is never aspired to and extremely difficult to achieve.
• Christianity is always unfashionable, because it is always healthy, and any fashion is at best a mild form of madness.
• The artistic temperament is a disease to which all amateurs are subject.
• Cynicism is akin to sentimentality in the sense that the cynical mind is as sensitive as it is sentimental.
• It often happens that bad people are guided by good motives, but even more often, on the contrary, good people are guided by bad motives.
• A man can claim intelligence, but he cannot claim wit.
• The human race to which so many of my readers belong...
• Humanity is not a herd of horses that we have to feed, but a club that we have to join.
• Honesty is never respectable - hypocrisy is respectable. Honesty always laughs, because everything around us is funny.
• An honest poor man can sometimes forget his poverty. An honest rich man never forgets his wealth.
• Eccentricities surprise only ordinary people, but not eccentrics. That's why ordinary people have so many adventures, while weirdos complain about boredom all the time.
• A miracle is the freedom of God.
• Humor is difficult to define, because only the lack of humor can explain the attempts to define it.
• I don't believe the modern rumors about home boredom and that a woman gets dumber if she only makes puddings and bakes pies. Just does things! Nothing more can be said about God.
• I cannot prove the validity of my point of view precisely because its validity is obvious.
• I have never taken my books seriously, but I take my opinions seriously.
• I have a soft spot for philistines. They are often right, although they cannot explain why.
• I have come to the conclusion that an optimist thinks everything is good except the pessimist, and a pessimist thinks everything is bad except himself.
• I want to love my neighbor not because he is me, but precisely because he is not me. I want to love the world not as a mirror in which I like my reflection, but as a woman, because she is completely different.

Gilbert Keith Chesterton- born May 29, 1874 in the London Borough Kensington, English Christian thinker, journalist and writer. Knight Commander with Star of the Vatican Order of Saint Gregory the Great.

You can laugh at anything, but not anywhere. We joke about the deathbed, but not at the deathbed. Life is always serious, but it is impossible to live always seriously.

A good person is easy to recognize: he has sadness in his heart and a smile on his face.

The most incredible thing about miracles is that they happen.

If the present world does not acquire a clear moral law capable of withstanding the charms of beauty and humor, it will simply become the prey of anyone who commits a sin amusingly or beautifully. If you manage to kill funny - kill. If you manage to steal funny - steal to your health.

The most unfortunate person in the world is an atheist, he sees the sea sunset, and he has no one to thank for this beauty.

Blessed are those who believe in the light in darkness.

Every normal person has a period when he prefers fiction to fact, for fact is what he owes to the world, while fantasy is what the world owes to him.

In morality, as in painting, the main thing is to draw a line in the right place.

The most intimate are told only to strangers.

Materialists and madmen know no doubts.

Silence is the most unbearable remark.

Urgent business must be done slowly, otherwise it will turn out badly.

Marriage is a duel not for life, but for death, from which not one
no self-respecting person has the right to refuse.

He who wants everything wants nothing.

When sex ceases to be a servant,
he instantly becomes a despot.

There is no such thing as an uninteresting topic in the world ... but there is such a thing as an indifferent person ...

Everyone who was born into the world experienced a terrible adventure - he could not be born. In my childhood, there was a lot of talk about undiscovered talents, and the phrase was in vogue: “He is so great, but he might not have existed!” In my opinion, it is much more important that everyone you meet is great and everyone could not be.

An arrogant apology is another insult.

It is not difficult to see why the legend deserved more respect than history. The whole village creates a legend - a lone madman writes a book.

If you do not feel like breaking even one of the commandments, then something is wrong with you.

In the new section we will publish aphorisms famous people who made a unique contribution to world culture - about Christianity, history, love, freedom, work, faith, culture and much more. Open a project "Thoughts of the Great" aphorisms Gilbert Keith Chesterton, English thinker and writer of the late XIX-early XX centuries.

God, personality:

It is not enough to find gods - they are obvious. One must find God, the true head of all gods.

The world has a purpose, and since there is a purpose, there is a personality. The world has always seemed like a fairy tale to me, and where there is a fairy tale, there is a storyteller.

The cosmos is infinite, but in the most bizarre constellation there is nothing interesting, like mercy or free will.

Pantheism does not awaken to a moral choice, because for him all things are the same, and for choice it is necessary to prefer one to the other.

If God is in man, man is in himself. If God is higher than man, man is higher than himself.

GK Chesterton at work. 1920s

Christ:

... in the freest, deepest sense, only one Man in the Old Testament is a Person; and the servant of Yahweh was anticipated by the plagues of Job.

One day the heavens came down to earth, bestowing the power or seal of the image of God, by which man became the master of Nature; and again (when in all empires men were weighed and found very light), to save mankind, the heavens came down to earth in the awesome form of Man.

Person:

The trouble is not that there are more and more machines, but that people have become machines.

Faith and ideals, atheism and freethinking:

Such is the property of materialism and skepticism, for if the mind is mechanical, it is not interesting to think, and if the world is unreal, there is nothing to think about.

The determinist creates a clear theory of causality and cannot say "please" to the maid.

The doubts of an agnostic are merely the dogmas of a materialist.

The materialistic philosophy (whether true or not) is undoubtedly more embarrassing than any religion.

A Christian has the right to believe that there is enough order and directed development in the world; a materialist has no right to add to his flawless mechanism not a grain of spirit or miracle...

A Christian recognizes that the world is diverse and even confusing - so a healthy person knows that he himself is complex ... But the world of a materialist is monolithic and simple ... Faith does not limit the mind in the same way as materialistic denials.

The secularists did not succeed in crushing the heavenly, but they perfectly succeeded in crushing everything earthly ... The supporters of evolution will not convince us that there is no God - God can act gradually. But they convinced themselves that there is no man.

In vain do speechless atheists speak of the great truths that will be revealed to us when we see the beginning of free thought - we have seen its end. She had no doubt left, and she doubted herself.

Miracle and Spirituality:

Life is beautiful because it is an adventure; life is an adventure because it is a chance.

The more clearly we see how life is like fairy tale, the clearer that this tale is about a battle with a dragon devastating a fairy-tale kingdom.

Their disbelief in miracles was a belief in an immovable godless fate, a deep sincere belief that the world is incurably boring...

A miracle is the instantaneous power of spirit over matter.

A miracle is the freedom of God...

Man is more wonderful and amazing than all people. The miracle of man must be more striking than all the miracles of reason, power, art and civilization.

It is not enough for the law, as Huxley imagined, that we rely on the ordinary order of things. We don't count, we bet on it. We are in danger of facing a miracle...

We leave out a miracle, not because it is excluded, but because it is an exception.

We do not lack mysticism, but healthy mysticism; not miracles, but miracles of healing.

We Westerners "went where reason takes us," and he led us to things that the champions of reason would never believe.

Faith and Truth:

What will I answer if there is no measure that stands outside of time?

Faith depends on views, and not on the century and the hour.

The easiest thing is to go on about the century, the hardest thing is to go as you went ... It's easy to fall; fall at many angles, stand at only one.

Some scientists care about the truth, and their truth is ruthless; and many humanists care only about pity. And their pity (I'm sorry to say) is often false.

How can I describe such mountains of truth? It's hard to defend what you believe in completely... not the one for whom something confirms his belief is convinced. The one for whom everything confirms it is convinced, but it is difficult to enumerate everything in the world.

Religions are not very different in rituals, they are terribly different in teaching.

Apologia for Christianity:

In the history of Christianity there is some kind of unnatural life - we can assume that life is supernatural.

... the Christian Church is a living, not a dead, teacher of my soul. Not only did she teach me yesterday, she will almost certainly teach me tomorrow...

The same people denounced the meek non-resistance of the monks and the bloody violence of the crusaders...

People who start a fight against the Church in the name of freedom and humanity are destroying freedom and humanity in order to fight the Church... Secularists have not destroyed divine values, but (if it can console them) they have shaken earthly values. The titans didn't destroy the heavens - they destroyed the earth.

Joy and Simplicity:

God is insatiable like a child, for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than us.

A person is more like himself, a person is more human when joy is the main thing in him, sorrow is secondary ... Joy is a great work by which we live.

People are capable of joy as long as they perceive something other than themselves, and are surprised and thankful ... But as soon as they decide that they themselves are above everything that life has to offer them, an all-corroding boredom will seize them, disappointment will swallow them, and all tantalum flour awaits them.

Altruism and selfishness:

Happiness is tested by gratitude...

Here best rule life and the best medical advice. Health - like strength, and beauty, and grace - is given to those who think about something else.

Nietzsche denies egoism by preaching it: to preach a doctrine is to share it. The egoist calls life a war without mercy and spares no effort to persuade his enemies to fight. The preacher of selfishness acts very altruistically.

Everyone who does not want to soften his heart will end up softening his brain.

Pride and Humility:

Snobs are simple souls, like savages.

Of all the terrible faiths, the most terrible is the worship of the god who sits inside you.

Unconditional faith in oneself is a hysterical and superstitious feeling.

The worst evil in the world is embodied not in a glass, but in a mirror, not in a tavern, but in that secluded room where a person examines himself.

... "I myself" is a very small measure and highly random. This is how the pettiness typical of our time arises, especially characteristic of those who boast of a broad outlook.

A person who does not trust his feelings, and a person who trusts only them, are equally insane ...

Those who feel that they cannot rule should rule. The hero of Carlyle says: "I will be king"; Christian saint - "Nolo episcopari". If the great paradox of Christianity means anything at all, it means this: take the crown and search the whole earth until you find a man who says he is not worthy of it.

By performing the ritual, people acquired moral value. They did not bring up courage - they fought for the shrine and suddenly noticed that they were brave. They did not bring up cleanliness - they washed for the altar and noticed that they were clean.

It doesn't matter who is stronger, it matters who is right.

The proud one tries everything in the world to himself, and not to the truth.

Sin, repentance, forgiveness:

Where is the pure horror of untruth, which is so beautiful in children? Where is the pure pity for a man, which is so beautiful in the good? Christianity found a way out here too. It waved its sword - and cut off the crime from the criminal. The offender must be forgiven up to seven times seventy. The crime does not need to be forgiven.

Our time has undermined not under Christian demonology, not under Christian theology, but under the very Christian ethics, which seemed to the great agnostic as unshakable as the stars.

Love and loyalty that give strength:

Loyalty to one woman is an inexpensive price to pay to see at least one woman ... Polygamy is a lack of love, as if you were absentmindedly sorting out a dozen priceless pearls.

I accept the world not as an optimist, but as a patriot. Peace is not a boarding house in Brighton, where we can leave if we don't like it. He is our family fortress with a flag on the tower, and the worse things are in it, the less right we have to leave ...

Rome was not loved for its greatness - Rome became great because it was loved.

Eternal fidelity to being is necessary.

One must love the world without relying on it; enjoy the world without merging with it.

Ideals and freedom:

We did not change reality to suit the ideal. We are changing the ideal; it's easier...

If you want everything to remain as it is, change faiths and fashions more often ...

The rebellion of the modern rebel has become meaningless: by rebelling against everything, he has lost the right to rebel against anything.

My ideal is stable - it stood up with this world. You can't change my utopia, because its name is paradise. You can change your destination, but not the place you left.

The one who believes always has a reason to rebel: after all, God in human hearts is under the heel of Satan. In the invisible world, hell rebelled against heaven. Here, in the visible world, heaven rebels against hell. The believer is always ready to rebel; for rebellion is restoration.

A modern young man will not change the world - he is busy changing his beliefs ... the ideal must be stable ... A firm rule is needed not only for the ruler, but also for the rebel. Every rebellion needs a stable ideal.

Freethinking is the best remedy against freedom. Free the mind of the slave in the very modern style and he will remain a slave. Teach him to doubt whether he wants freedom, and he won't want it...

Changes:

Nietzsche expressed the nonsensical idea that people once saw good in what we now call evil. If this were so, we could not say that we have surpassed our ancestors, or even lagged behind them.

Change is almost the narrowest and most rigid rut that a person can get into.

Fanaticism as madness:

The uniformity of his thinking makes him boring, it also makes him crazy.

If a madman could become carefree for a second, he would recover ... Neither a sense of humor, nor mercy, nor a modest reliability of experience interferes with him.

The madman is imprisoned in the pure, well-lit prison of one idea, he has no healthy doubt, no healthy complexity.

Democracy:

The first principle of democracy: the main thing in people is what is inherent in all of them, and not in someone in particular.

Newspapermen have no reason to fight against the censors. Gone are those days. Now the newspaper itself is a censor.

Work:

I have always trusted the masses of hard-working people more than the restless breed of writers to which I belong. Even the fantasies and prejudices of those who see life from the inside, I will prefer to the clearest arguments of those who see life from the outside.

Creation:

A picture or a book is a success if, after meeting a cloud, a tree, a character, we say: "I have seen this hundreds of times and have never seen it."

A revolution in art is one thing, in morality another...

... only the image is boring; Feelings remain feelings, people remain people...

Those who care about the truth and not fashion will not be confused by the nonsense that is now shrouded in every manifestation of irritability or licentiousness. Those who see not truth and lies, but fashionable and unfashionable, are the unfortunate victims of words and empty forms.