To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it.

—G. K. Chesterton

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About G. K. Chesterton

Portrait of G. K. Chesterton

Gilbert Keith Chesterton (29 May 1874 – 14 June 1936) was an English author, philosopher, Christian apologist, and literary and art critic.

More quotations from G. K. Chesterton

There are no wise few. Every aristocracy that has ever existed has behaved, in all essential points, exactly like a small mob.

—G. K. Chesterton

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The men who really believe in themselves are all in lunatic asylums.

—G. K. Chesterton

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humor insanity self-confidence

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Don't ever take a fence down until you know the reason it was put up.

—G. K. Chesterton

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It is not bigotry to be certain we are right; but it is bigotry to be unable to imagine how we might possibly have gone wrong.

—G. K. Chesterton

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A permanent possibility of selfishness arises from the mere fact of having a self, and not from any accidents of education or ill-treatment. And the weakness of all Utopias is this, that they take the greatest difficulty of man and assume it to be overcome, and then give an elaborate account of the overcoming of the smaller ones. They first assume that no man will

—G. K. Chesterton

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More quotations tagged with “rights”

America is not a mere body of traders; it is a body of free men. Our greatness-built upon freedom-is moral, not material. we have a great ardor for gain; but we have a deep passion for the rights of man.

—Woodrow Wilson

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We first crush people to the earth, and then claim the right of trampling on them forever, because they are prostrate.

—Lydia Maria Child

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Human beings have capitalized on the silence of animals, just as certain human beings have historically imposed silence on certain other human beings by denying slaves the right to literacy, denying women the right to own property, and denying both the right to vote.

—Gary Steiner

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No matter how dull, or how mean, or how wise a man is, he feels that happiness is his indisputable right.

—Helen Keller in Optimism

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