Oliver > Oliver's Quotes

“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”
― George Orwell, Animal Farm

“Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“There are two ways to get enough. One is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because generally they are the same people.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "Do it again"; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.”
― G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

“A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.”
― G.K. Chesterton, Heretics

“Do not be so open-minded that your brains fall out.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“It [feminism] is mixed up with a muddled idea that women are free when they serve their employers but slaves when they help their husbands.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“It is absurd for the Evolutionist to complain that it is unthinkable for an admittedly unthinkable God to make everything out of nothing, and then pretend that it is more thinkable that nothing should turn itself into everything.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“The world will never starve for want of wonders; but only for want of wonder.”
― G.K. Chesterton, Tremendous Trifles

“There are those who hate Christianity and call their hatred an all-embracing love for all religions.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits.”
― G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

“There's a lot of difference between listening and hearing.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“We fear men so much, because we fear God so little. One fear cures another. When man's terror scares you, turn your thoughts to the wrath of God.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all.”
― G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

“The man who kills a man kills a man.
The man who kills himself kills all men.
As far as he is concerned, he wipes out the world.”
― G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

“Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about.”
― G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

“Impartiality is a pompous name for indifference which is an elegant name for ignorance.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“You can only find truth with logic if you have already found truth without it.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become capable of believing in anything.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“The most incredible thing about miracles is that they happen.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“The riddles of God are more satisfying than the solutions of man.”
― G.K. Chesterton, Introduction to the Book of Job

“There are no words to express the abyss between isolation and having one ally. It may be conceded to the mathematician that four is twice two. But two is not twice one; two is two thousand times one.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“It is terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged. ”
― G.K. Chesterton

“To complain that I could only be married once was like complaining that I had only been born once.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“The most extraordinary thing in the world is an ordinary man and an ordinary woman and their ordinary children.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“The truth is, of course, that the curtness of the Ten Commandments is an evidence, not of the gloom and narrowness of a religion, but, on the contrary, of its liberality and humanity. It is shorter to state the things forbidden than the things permitted; precisely because most things are permitted, and only a few things are forbidden.”
― G.K. Chesterton