Gilbert quotes. Chesterton's aphorisms and quotes. An urgent matter must be done slowly, otherwise it will turn out badly

In a new section we will publish aphorisms famous people who made a unique contribution to world culture - about Christianity, history, love, freedom, labor, faith, culture and much more. Open the project "Thoughts of the Great" aphorisms Gilbert Keith Chesterton, English thinker and writer of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

God, personality:

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

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

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

Pantheism does not awaken to a moral choice, for all things are the same for it, and in order to make a choice it is necessary to prefer one over 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 most free, deepest sense, there is only one Person in the Old Testament - the Person; and the servant of Yahweh is anticipated by the plagues of Job.

One day, heaven came down to earth, bestowing the power or seal of the image of God, thanks to which man became the ruler of Nature; and again (when in all empires people were weighed and found very light), in order to save humanity, heaven came down to earth in the amazing form of Man.

Human:

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

Faith and ideals, atheism and free thinking:

This 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 servant.

The doubts of the agnostic are only the dogmas of the materialist.

Materialistic philosophy, whether it is true or not, is undoubtedly more embarrassing than any religion.

The Christian has the right to believe that there is enough orderliness and directional development in the world; the materialist has no right to add to his flawless mechanism not a particle of spirit or miracle ...

The Christian admits that the world is diverse and even confused - so a healthy person knows that he himself is complex ... But the world of the 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.

It is in vain that eloquent 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, 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 clearer we see how life is like fairy tale, it is all the clearer that this tale is about the battle with the dragon, devastating the fairy kingdom.

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

Miracle is the instant power of spirit over matter.

Miracle is the freedom of God ...

A man is more wonderful and amazing than all people. The miracle of man should amaze more 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 are not counting, we are betting on it. We risk facing a miracle ...

We do not take into account a miracle, not because it is excluded, but because it is an exception.

It is not mysticism that we lack, but healthy mysticism; not miracles, but miracles of healing.

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

Faith and Truth:

What will I answer if there is no yardstick that stands out of time?

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

The easiest way is to follow the lead of the century, the most difficult of all is to walk as you walked ... It's easy to fall; fall at many angles, stand at only one.

Some scholars care about truth, and their truth is ruthless; and many humanists only care about pity. And their pity (I am bitter to talk about this) is often false.

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

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

Apology of Christianity:

There is some kind of unnatural life in the history of Christianity - it can be considered that life is supernatural.

... the Christian Church is a living, not a dead, mentor of my soul. She not only taught me yesterday, but she will almost certainly teach tomorrow ...

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

People who begin to fight against the Church in the name of freedom and humanity are destroying freedom and humanity, just to fight the Church ... The secularists did not destroy divine values, but (if this can console them) they shake earthly values. The Titans did not destroy the heavens - they destroyed the earth.

Joy and simplicity:

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

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

People are capable of joy as long as they perceive something besides themselves, and are surprised and thankful ... But as soon as they decide that they themselves are above everything that life has to offer them, all-eating boredom will take possession of them, disappointment will swallow them, and all tantalum torments await them.

Altruism and selfishness:

Happiness is tested by gratitude ...

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

Nietzsche denies selfishness 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 is very altruistic.

Anyone who does not wish to soften his heart will end up with softening his brain.

Pride and humility:

Snobs are simple souls, like savages.

Of all the fearful beliefs, the most terrible is the worship of the God that sits within you.

Unconditional belief in yourself 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 open-mindedness.

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

The one who feels that he cannot rule should rule. Carlyle's hero 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 entire earth until you find someone who says he is not worthy of it.

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

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

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

Sin, repentance, forgiveness:

Where is the pure horror of untruth that is so beautiful in children? Where is the pure pity for man, which is so beautiful in the good? Christianity found a way out here as well. It swung the sword - and cut off the crime from the criminal. The offender must be forgiven up to seven times seventy. There is no need to forgive a crime.

Our time has brought undermining not under Christian demonology, not under Christian theology, but under the very Christian ethics that seemed to the great agnostic as unshakable like stars.

Love and fidelity giving 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 are absentmindedly sorting through a dozen priceless pearls.

I accept the world not as an optimist, but as a patriot. The world is not a boarding house in Brighton from 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 him, the less we have the right to leave ...

They did not love Rome for its greatness - Rome became great, for they loved it.

Eternal fidelity to being is necessary.

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

Ideals and Freedom:

We did not change reality for the sake of the ideal. We are changing the ideal; it's easier ...

If you want everything to remain as it is, change your faith and fashion more often ...

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

My ideal is stable - it stood with this world. You cannot change my utopia, for its name is paradise. You can change your destination, but not the place from which you left.

The one who believes always has a reason for rebellion: after all, God is in the hearts of men under the heel of Satan. In the invisible world, hell has risen against the sky. Here, in the visible world, heaven rises 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. Any rebellion needs a stable ideal.

Freethinking is the best weapon against freedom. Free the mind of a slave in the very modern style and he will remain a slave. Teach him to doubt whether he wants freedom - and he will not 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 surpassed our ancestors, or at least lagged behind them.

Change is almost the narrowest and toughest track 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 have recovered ... He is not hindered by either a sense of humor, or mercy, or the modest reliability of experience.

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

Democracy:

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

Newspapers don't have to fight the censors. Gone are the days. Now the newspaper itself is a censor.

Work:

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

Creation:

A picture or a book is successful if, having met after it 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, not the fashion, will not be bewildered by the nonsense that now surrounds every manifestation of irritability or licentiousness. Those who see not truth and lies, but fashionable and unfashionable, are unfortunate victims of words and empty form.

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

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

Good man it's 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 that can withstand the delights of beauty and humor, it will simply become the prey of anyone who amusingly or beautifully commits a sin. 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 him.

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

Only strangers are told about the most intimate.

Materialists and madmen have no doubts.

Silence is the most unbearable reply.

An urgent matter must be done slowly, otherwise it will turn out badly.

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

He who wants everything wants nothing.

When the floor is no longer a servant
he instantly becomes a despot.

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

Everyone born into the world has gone through a terrible adventure - he might not be born. In my childhood, they talked a lot about unrevealed talents, and the phrase was in vogue: "He is so great, but he might not have been!" In my opinion, it is much more important that everyone you meet is great and everyone might not be.

A haughty apology is another insult.

It is not hard to see why the legend has earned more respect than history. The whole village is making a legend - a lonely madman is writing the book.

If you don't feel like breaking even one of the commandments, then something is wrong with you.

Actors who cannot play believe in themselves; and bankrupts.

Anarchy and creativity are one. These are synonyms. The one who threw the bomb is a poet and an artist, for the great moment is above all for him.

English radicalism has always been a posture rather than a conviction - if it were a conviction, it could have triumphed.

Artistic temperament is an affliction afflicted by amateurs.

Architecture is the alphabet of giants.

Life is too good to enjoy.

Journalism is when it is reported, "Lord John is dead," to people who did not even know that Lord John lived.

Being involved in politics is like blowing your nose or writing to a bride. You have to do it yourself, even if you don't know how.

Evil creeps in like a disease. Good comes running out of breath, like a doctor.

Out of pure philanthropy and hate for a short time.

By mocking limitedness, we ourselves are in grave danger of becoming limited.

Intellectuals fall into two categories: some worship the intellect, others use it.

Art is always a limitation. The meaning of every 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 everyone's opinion minus his own.

Everyone wants to be informed honestly, impartially, truthfully - and in full accordance with their views.

What is the point of fighting against a stupid tyrant in London, if the same tyrant is sovereign in the family?

Carlyle said that people are mostly fools; Christianity expressed itself more precisely and categorically: all are fools.

We call a classic a writer who can be praised without reading.

When they say that you cannot scold the Boer War until it is over, you should not even answer; with the same success it can be said that one should not block the mother's path to the cliff until she has fallen.

When humanity no longer produces happy people, it begins to produce optimists.

Blasphemy dies with religion; if in doubt, try blaspheming against Odin.

Critics disregard the wise advice not to throw stones if you live in a greenhouse.

Round fools are drawn to intelligence, like cats to fire.

The frivolity of our society is manifested in the fact that it has long forgotten how to laugh at itself.

It's easy to be insane; it's easy to be a heretic.

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 healthy.

Love does not dazzle wherever there is! - love binds, and the more tightly you are bound, the clearer you see.

Love, by its very nature, binds itself, and the institution of marriage only rendered the ordinary person a service, catching him at his word.

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 in the early morning.

Materialists and madmen have no doubts.

I am always struck to the depths of my soul by a strange property of my compatriots: unjustified arrogance combined with even more unjustified modesty.

Many detective novels fail precisely because the criminal does not owe anything to the plot, except for the need to commit a crime.

Many of those who are able to compose an epic poem are not able to write an epigram.

The humble speak much; the proud take care of themselves too much.

Silence is an unbearable response.

Men are people, but Man is woman.

We are not generous enough to be ascetic.

We are so mired in painful prejudices, so respectful of insanity, that a sane person scares us like a madman.

We joke about the deathbed, but not 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.

A haughty apology is another insult.

Violence against a person is not violence, but rebellion, for every person is a king.

Ridiculousness is a sign of dignity.

It is not hard to see why the legend has earned more respect than history. The whole village is making a legend - a lonely madman is writing the book.

Never break a fence without knowing why it was put up.

Nothing brings more despondency to our age than amusement.

Anything can be said about a madman, except that his actions are unreasonable. On the contrary, the madman sees the cause in everything.

There is no dispute about tastes: because of tastes, they scold, scandal and swear.

Only completely strangers are told about the most intimate.

The usual opinion about insanity is deceptive: a person does not lose logic at all; he loses everything except logic.

It is one thing to love people, and quite another to be a philanthropist.

They (modern philosophers) subordinate good to purposefulness, although all good is an end, and all purposefulness is nothing more than a means to achieve this end.

Orthodoxy is normalcy, health, and health is more interesting and more difficult than madness.

There is a road from the eyes to the heart that does not go through the intellect.

Casting aside vanity and false modesty (which healthy people always use as a joke), I must say with all frankness: my contribution to literature boils down to the fact that I have distorted some very good ideas of my time.

The paradox is reminiscent of a forgotten truth.

The paradox of courage is that you shouldn't be too concerned 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.

What we really remember is what we have forgotten.

Only those men who are not afraid of women are truly cowardly.

To constantly be exposed to dangers that do not threaten us, to take vows that will not bind us in anything, to challenge enemies that we are not afraid of - this is the false tyranny of decadence called freedom.

The holiday, like liberalism, means human freedom. 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.

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 against the wrong things.

The Puritan seeks to comprehend the truth; the Catholic is content that it exists.

Travel develops your mind, if you have one.

Since a person learns to play for his own pleasure, why not learn to think for his own pleasure?

The growing need for a strong person is an irrefutable sign of weakness.

A novel in which there is no death seems to me a novel in which there is no life.

Serious doubts are most often caused by insignificant trifles.

The strength of any artist lies in the ability to control, tame his intemperance.

Speed, as you know, is known by comparison: when two trains move at the same speed, it seems that both are standing still. Likewise, a society: it stands still if all its members are worn as established.

Listening to music while eating is an offense for the cook and for the violinist.

The snob assures that only on his head is a real hat; the reasoner insists that only under his hat is the real head.

To the modern world it is not destined to see the future if we do not understand: instead of striving for everything 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 love beige sherry. "

Haste is bad because it takes a lot of time.

Suffering with its fear and despair imperiously attracts a young and inexperienced artist to itself, just as a schoolboy draws notebooks with devils, skeletons and gallows.

The desire for free love is equally desire to become a married bachelor or white black.

A madman is a person who has lost everything except his mind.

There is a big difference between a person who wants to read a book and a person who needs a book in order to read.

Tolerance is a virtue for people without convictions.

What we call "progress" is only a comparative degree of that from which there is no superior.

Only that religion is good at which you can make fun of.

He who wants everything wants nothing.

A killer kills a person, a suicide kills humanity.

The ability to fight in circumstances that inspire nothing but sheer despair.

It is all the easier to establish an immutable truth in a dispute because it does not exist in nature.

Fact is what man owes to the world, while fantasy, fiction is what the world owes to man.

A fanatic is one who takes his own opinion seriously.

Good romance tells the truth about his hero, the bad one - about his author.

While 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: the strongest desire to live, taken the form of a willingness to die.

The Christian ideal is not something that has been strived for and has not been achieved; this is something they never strive for and which is extremely difficult to achieve.

Cynicism is akin to sentimentality in the sense that a 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- bad motives.

A person can pretend to be smart, but he cannot pretend to be wit.

The human race that so many of my readers belong to ...

Honesty is never respectable - respectable is hypocrisy. Honesty always laughs, because everything around us is funny.

Humanity is not a herd of horses that we must feed, but a club that we must enroll in.

An honest poor man can sometimes forget about his poverty. An honest rich man never forgets his wealth.

Eccentricities surprise only ordinary people but not weirdos. This is why ordinary people have so many adventures, while weirdos complain of boredom all the time.

Humor is difficult to define, because only the lack of a sense of humor can explain attempts to define it.

I have a soft spot for philistines. They are often right, although they cannot explain why.

I came to the conclusion that an optimist thinks everything is good except a 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.

The poor rebelled sometimes and only against bad government; the rich are always against anyone.

Adventure can be crazy; 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 unprotected.

In great battles, the defeated are often victorious. Those who were defeated at the end of the battle triumphed at the end of the affair.

A great work always contains the simplest truth counting on the simplest reading.

Nine times out of ten, the wife's lover is the most hated by the wife herself.

In a woman there is more immediate, momentary strength, which is called entrepreneurship; in a man there is more latent saved power, which is called laziness ...

In love, the lender shares the debtor's joy.

In the ecstasy of victory, mistakes are forgotten and extremes arise.

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.

The thief honors property. He wants to appropriate it in order to honor it 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 upbringing.

All people who really believe in themselves are in an insane asylum.

The whole difference between creation and creation boils down to the following: creation can be loved only by the already created, and the creation is loved by the uncreated.

Any conservatism is based on the fact that if everything is left as it is, everything will remain in its place. But this is not the case. If even one thing is left in its place, it will undergo the most incredible changes.

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.

The main sin of journalism is that in his articles the newspaperman misrepresents himself.

The person who mechanically eats caviar behaves much more naturally than the one who basically does not eat grapes.

The point is 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 point is, they cannot see the problem.

Democracy means the rule of the uneducated, aristocracy means the rule of the poorly educated.

Democrats are pushing for equality at birth. Tradition stands for equality after death.

For the childish nature of a pessimist, every change of fashion is the end of the world.

For the poet, the joy of life is the cause of faith, for the saint it is its fruit.

The worst for the oppressed is those nine days out of ten when they are not oppressed.

For a person of passion, love and peace are a mystery, for a sensitive person, it is as old as the world.

Friends love you for who you are; wife loves you and wants to make another person out of you.

The only true blessing is unpaid debt.

The only disadvantage of our democracy is that it does not tolerate equality.

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 interesting 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, know: there is nothing better than this object!

If you don't feel like breaking even one of the Ten Commandments, then something is wrong with you.

If a woman becomes a companion, it is quite possible that she will be given a knee in the ass in a comradely manner.

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: Freedom, Equality and Brotherhood.

Actors who cannot play believe in themselves; and bankrupts.
Anarchy and creativity are one. These are synonyms. The one who threw the bomb is a poet and an artist, for the great moment is above all for him.
English radicalism has always been a posture rather than a conviction - if it were a conviction, it could have triumphed.
Artistic temperament is an affliction afflicted by amateurs.
Architecture is the alphabet of giants, the greatest system of visible symbols ever created.
The poor rebelled sometimes and only against bad government; the rich are always against anyone.
Without education, we are in dire, 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 unprotected.
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 the truth")
Buddhism is not faith. Buddhism is doubt.
In great battles, the defeated are often victorious. Those who were defeated at the end of the battle triumphed at the end of the affair.
A great work always contains the simplest truth counting on the simplest reading.
Nine times out of ten, the wife's lover is the most hated by the wife herself.
In a woman there is more immediate, momentary strength, which is called entrepreneurship; in a man there is more latent saved power, which is called laziness ...
In love, the lender shares the debtor's joy.
In love, the lender shares the joy of the debtor ... We are not so generous as to be ascetics.
Extreme moral promiscuity and hypocrisy are manifested in the diversity and cruelty of ethical prohibitions.
In the ecstasy of victory, mistakes are forgotten and extremes arise.
You seem to think that the funniest thing is to be decorous in the streets and at gala dinners, and at home, near the fireplace (you are right - a fireplace is within my means) to amuse the guests until they drop. But that's what everyone does. Take anyone - he is serious in public, but at home he is a humorist. A sense of humor tells me that it should be the other way around, that one should be a jester in public and a sedate one 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 tales are more than true: not because they lie that dragons exist, but because they claim that the dragon can be defeated.
The thief honors property. He just wants to appropriate it in order to honor it even more.
Thieves respect property. They just want her to belong to them, so that 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 upbringing.
All people who really believe in themselves are in an insane asylum.
All human troubles come from the fact that we enjoy what should be enjoyed and use what should be enjoyed.
The whole difference between creation and creation boils down to the following: creation can be loved only by the already created, and the creation is loved by the uncreated.
Any conservatism is based on the fact that if everything is left as it is, everything will remain in its place. But this is not the case. If even 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 your 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 do not just report the news, but they also deliver everything in the form of news.
The main sin of journalism is that in his articles the newspaperman misrepresents himself.
The person who mechanically eats caviar behaves much more naturally than the one who basically does not eat grapes.
The point is 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 point is, they cannot see the problem.
Democracy means the rule of the uneducated, aristocracy means the rule of the poorly educated.
Democrats are pushing for equality at birth. Tradition stands for equality after death.
For the childish nature of a pessimist, every change of fashion is the end of the world.
For the poet, the joy of life is the cause of faith, for the saint it is its fruit.
The worst for the oppressed is those nine days out of ten when they are not oppressed.
For a person of passion, love and peace are a mystery, for a sensitive person, it is as old as the world.
Friends love you the way you are; wife loves you and wants to make another person out of you.
... Fools are drawn to intellectuality, like cats to fire.
The only true blessing is unpaid debt.
The only disadvantage of our democracy is that it does not tolerate equality.
The only way to catch the 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 interesting 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, know: there is nothing better than this object!
If you don't feel like breaking even one of the Ten Commandments, then something is wrong with you.
If you have not understood a person, you have no right to condemn him, and if you have understood, 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 companion, it is quite possible that she will be given a knee in the ass in a comradely manner.
If the pilot believes in immortality, then the lives of the 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: Freedom, Equality and Brotherhood.
Life is always serious, but it is impossible to live always seriously.
Life is too good to enjoy.
Journalism is when it is reported: * Lord John is dead * to people who did not even know that Lord John lived.
Being involved in politics is like blowing your nose or writing to a bride. You have to do it yourself, even if you don't know how.
Evil creeps in 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 limitedness, we ourselves are in grave danger of becoming limited.
Changes in society, called fashion, are only possible because people have two funny traits. Firstly, so much happens to every person that he will always remember at least something that foreshadowed the current turn. Secondly, almost everyone misunderstands the past, and in a biased memory, this detail seems extremely important.
Studying people by observing their contemporaries is like looking at mountains with a magnifying glass; studying 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 up the official ladder and slowly descends into the coffin, surrounded by honors, without enlightening or even amusing anyone.
Intellectuals fall into two categories: some worship the intellect, others use it.
Art is always a limitation. The meaning of every 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 everyone's opinion minus his own.
Everyone wants to be informed honestly, impartially, truthfully - and in full accordance with their views.
What is the point of fighting against a stupid tyrant in London, if the same tyrant is sovereign in the family?
Carlyle said that people are mostly fools; Christianity expressed itself more precisely and categorically: all are fools.
We call a classic a writer who can be praised without reading.
When they say that you cannot scold the Boer War until it is over, you should not even answer; with the same success it can be said that one should not block the mother's path to the cliff until she has fallen.
When triumph is the yardstick of everything, fans of success cannot wait for it. As long as hope really remains, it is viewed as banality and vulgarity; and it is only when things are hopeless that hope begins to gain strength. Like all Christian virtues, it is both reckless and imperative.
When humanity no longer produces happy people, it begins to produce optimists.
A man's comedy experiences his tragedy.
Blasphemy dies with religion; if in doubt, try blaspheming against Odin.
Critics disregard the wise advice not to throw stones if you live in a greenhouse.
Round fools are drawn to intelligence, like cats to fire.
It's easy to be insane; it's easy to be a heretic.
It is easy to be a difficult person, but very difficult 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 healthy.
Love does not dazzle wherever there is! - love binds, and the more tightly you are bound, the clearer you see.
Love, by its very nature, binds itself, and the institution of marriage only rendered the ordinary person a service, catching him at his word.
People are afraid of the human skeleton. In fact, the fear of the skeleton is not fear of death at all. Man, to his shame and glory, is not so afraid of death as humiliation. And the skeleton reminds him that inside he is shamelessly funny and rather ugly.
People usually fight 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 in the early morning.
The small circle is as endless as the big one, but not so great.
Materialists and madmen have no doubts.
I am always struck to the depths of my soul by a strange property of my compatriots: unjustified arrogance combined with even more unjustified modesty.
The world shuddered, and the sun was darkened not when God was crucified, but when a cry was heard from the cross that God was forsaken by God.
Many detective novels fail precisely because the criminal does not owe anything to the plot, except for the need to commit a crime.
Many of those who are able to compose an epic poem are not able to write an epigram.
It seems to many that women would bring gentleness or sensitivity to politics. But a woman is dangerous in politics because she is too fond of male methods.
The humble speak much; the proud take care of themselves too much.
For many hours he stood on the lawn, watching as bottles and barrels were smashed, and enjoying that fanatical joy that neither food, nor wine, nor women could give to his strange, cold soul.
My opinion about Poland was formed as a result of observations of those who revile it. I came to one, in my opinion, indisputable conclusion that Poland's ill-wishers are usually also fierce enemies of generosity and courage. Every time, encountering such individuals, who amuse their slave souls through usury and the cult of terror, mired in the swamp of materialistic politics, I found in them, in addition to the above qualities, a passionate hatred of Poland.
Silence is an unbearable response.
Men are people, but Man is woman.
Music during dinner is an insult to both the chef and the violinist.
We are not generous enough to be ascetic.
We ourselves make friends, we ourselves create enemies, and only our neighbors are from God.
We are so mired in painful prejudices, so respectful of insanity, that a sane person scares us like a madman.
We joke about the deathbed, but not 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.
A haughty apology is another insult.
Finding the truth with the help of logic is possible only if 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.
Do not think that this or that thought did not occur to the greats: it came and found many better thoughts there, ready to knock the crap out of her.
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.
Not that the world has gotten much worse, but the coverage has gotten much better.
You cannot admire something that is not complete. Therefore, not a single crowd has taken possession of the idea of a gradual moral change or progress leading to no one knows where.
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 surrendering to the imagination, the romance of life, for in dreams he finds that shelter in which his mind will find rest.
It is not hard to see why the legend has earned more respect than history. The whole village is making a legend - a lonely madman is writing the book.
No war deserves an excuse except a defensive war. A defensive war, by its very nature and by definition, is a war with which a person comes back beaten, bleeding and unable to boast of anything except 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 hectic life, when you forget about it.
Anything can be said about a madman, except that his actions are unreasonable. On the contrary, the madman sees the cause in everything.
There is no dispute about tastes: because of tastes, they scold, scandal and swear.
It is customary to speak of laws as something cold and shy. In fact, only in a wild impulse, maddened and drunk with freedom, people can create laws. When people are tired they fall into anarchy; when they are strong and cheerful, they invariably create limits and rules.
Only completely strangers are told about the most intimate.
The usual opinion about insanity is deceptive: a person does not lose logic at all; he loses everything except logic.
It is one thing to love people, and quite another to be a philanthropist.
He felt in all its fullness that joy that is unknown to the proud; joy that borders on humiliation, no - that is inseparable from him. It is known to those who have escaped death, and those to whom love has returned, and those whose iniquities are covered.
He understood what all romantics have known for a long time: that adventures do not happen on sunny days, but on gray days. Tighten the monotonous string to the point of failure, and it will break so loudly, as if a song was playing.
... They have forgotten an important force - newspapermen. They forgot that in our days (perhaps for the first time in history) there are people who are not busy 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 by the fact that it happened.
They (modern philosophers) subordinate good to purposefulness, although all good is an end, and all purposefulness is nothing more than a means to achieve this end.
Orthodoxy is normalcy, health, and health is more interesting and more difficult than madness.
Orthodoxy is normalcy, health, and health is more interesting and more difficult than madness. It's easy to be insane; it's easy to be a heretic.
There is a road from the eyes to the heart that does not go through the intellect.
Casting aside vanity and false modesty (which healthy people always use as a joke), I must say with all frankness: my contribution to literature boils down to the fact that I have distorted some very good ideas of my time.
The paradox is reminiscent of a forgotten truth.
The paradox of courage is that you shouldn't be too concerned 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 flip side of joy.
In reality, we only 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. The victory of the barbarians. This is the fate of the empire.
Believe me, it's not imaginative people who go crazy. Even in the most tragic state of mind, they do not lose their minds. You can always shake them, wake them up from a terrible dream, beckoning with lighter views, because they have imagination. People without imagination go crazy. Stubborn stoics, devoted to one idea and taking it too literally. The silencers who pout-pout boil until they explode.
The pursuit of health always leads to unhealthy things. You cannot obey nature, you cannot worship - you can only rejoice.
What we really remember is what we have forgotten.
To constantly be exposed to dangers that do not threaten us, to take vows that will not bind us in anything, to challenge enemies that we are not afraid of - this is the false tyranny of decadence called freedom.
Why don't we argue about words? What then to argue about? Why are we given words if we cannot argue about them? Why do we prefer one word to 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 with, if not in words? Ear movements?
The holiday, like liberalism, means human freedom. A miracle is the freedom of God.
Before, "compromise" meant that half a loaf of bread was better than nothing. With today's politicians, "compromise" means that half a loaf is better than a whole loaf.
Former idealist Republicans used to found democracy on the assumption that all people were equally smart. However, I assure you: a solid and healthy democracy is based on the fact that all people are the same idiots.
The perpetrator is a creative artist; a detective is just a critic.
Adventures can be crazy, the hero must be sane.
Progress and expediency are, by their very nature, only a means to achieve 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 against the wrong things.
The Puritan seeks to comprehend the truth; the Catholic is content that it exists.
The traveler sees what he sees; the tourist sees what he has come to see.
Travel develops your mind, if you have one.
Since a person learns to play for his own pleasure, why not learn to think for his own pleasure?
The growing need for a strong person is an irrefutable sign of weakness.
A speech needs an exciting beginning and a convincing ending. The job of a good speaker is to bring these two things as close as possible.
The human race, and a considerable portion of my readers belong to it, has been committed to children's games for centuries and will never leave them, be angry, don't be angry, those few who somehow managed to grow up.
A novel in which there is no death seems to me a novel in which there is no life.
By himself, every person is a creature in appearance, perhaps that is rational: he eats, and sleeps, and makes plans. And take humanity? It is changeable and mysterious, fastidious and charming. In a word, people are mostly men, but a 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 an artist in a person ...
Today I saw what is worse than death. This is called the world.
Serious doubts are most often caused by insignificant trifles.
The strength of any artist lies in the ability to control, tame his intemperance.
Fairy tales do not tell children that there are dragons - children themselves know about it. Fairy tales say dragons can be killed.
Speed, as you know, is known by comparison: when two trains move at the same speed, it seems that both are standing still. Likewise, a society: it stands still if all its members are worn as established.
Following tradition means giving your votes to the most mysterious party - the party of our ancestors.
Listening to music while eating is an offense for the cook and for the violinist.
You can laugh at anything, but not whenever you want. We joke about the deathbed, but not the deathbed. Life is always serious, but it is impossible to live always seriously.
The snob assures that only on his head is a real hat; the reasoner insists that only under his hat is the real head.
The modern world is not destined to see the future if we do not understand: instead of striving for everything 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 love beige sherry. "
Haste is bad because it takes a lot of time.
Try to maintain a sense of proportion and - a sense of humor!
Suffering with its fear and despair imperiously attracts a young and inexperienced artist to itself, just as a schoolboy draws notebooks with devils, skeletons and gallows.
The desire for free love is equally desire to become a married bachelor or white black.
Crazy people are serious people; they go crazy for a lack of humor.
A madman is a person who has lost everything except his mind.
There is a big difference between a person who wants to read a book and a person who needs a book in order to read.
There are many wrong opinions about a friendly conversation, especially about a sincere conversation. People rarely tell the truth when they, even modestly, talk about themselves; but they reveal a lot when they talk about 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 something else.
Tolerance is a virtue for people without convictions.
What we call "progress" is only a comparative degree of that from which there is no superior.
Only that religion is good at which you can make fun of.
Only those who know nothing about cars will try to drive without gasoline; only one who does not understand anything in reason will try to think without a solid, undeniable basis.
The passion with which people chase after 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 on his mind, and only one thing. I myself was once dangerous.
The hardest thing is to really love what you love.
Lord Ivywood had a flaw inherent in many people who learned the world from books - he did not suspect that it was not only possible, but also necessary to learn something differently.
A killer kills a person, a suicide kills humanity.
The ability to fight in circumstances that inspire nothing but sheer despair.
It is all the easier to establish an immutable truth in a dispute because it does not exist in nature.
Fact is what man owes to the world, while fantasy, fiction is what the world owes to man.
A fanatic is one who takes his own opinion seriously.
It's easy to recognize a good person: he has sadness in his heart and a smile on his face.
A good novel tells the truth about its hero, a bad one about its author.
While 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: the strongest desire to live, taken the form of a willingness to die.
A Christian is indeed worse than a pagan, a Spaniard is worse than an Indian, and even a Roman is 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 strived for and has not been achieved; this is something they never strive for and which is extremely difficult to achieve.
Christianity is always unfashionable, for it is always healthy, and any fashion is at best a mild form of insanity.
Artistic temperament is a disease that all amateurs are susceptible to.
Cynicism is akin to sentimentality in the sense that a 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 person can pretend to be smart, but he cannot pretend to be wit.
The human race that so many of my readers belong to ...
Humanity is not a herd of horses that we must feed, but a club that we must enroll in.
Honesty is never respectable - respectable is hypocrisy. Honesty always laughs, because everything around us is funny.
An honest poor man can sometimes forget about his poverty. An honest rich man never forgets his wealth.
Eccentricities surprise only ordinary people, not eccentrics. This is why ordinary people have so many adventures, while weirdos complain of boredom all the time.
A miracle is the freedom of God.
Humor is difficult to define, because only a lack of humor can explain attempts to define it.
I don’t believe the modern talk about home boredom and the fact that a woman is dumb if she only makes puddings and bakes pies. Only does things! You can't say much more 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 do take my opinions seriously.
I have a soft spot for philistines. They are often right, although they cannot explain why.
I came to the conclusion that an optimist thinks everything is good except a 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 Chesterton

(1874-1936)

Writer

Actors who cannot play believe in themselves; and bankrupts.

Artistic temperament is an affliction afflicted by amateurs.

Architecture is the alphabet of giants.

The Bible tells us to love our neighbors as well as our enemies; probably because for the most part they are the same people.