Quote 501
The first effect of not believing in God is to believe in anything.
G.K. Chesterton
Blend of quotes found in Father Brown Stories2.9K
Other Quotes from the Author & Topic
We shall soon be in a world in which a man may be howled down for saying that two and two make four, in which people will persecute the heresy of calling a triangle a three-sided figure, and hang a man for maddening a mob with the news that grass is green.
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.
Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.
The State did not own men so entirely, even when it could send them to the stake, as it sometimes does now where it can send them to the elementary school.
Merely having an open mind is nothing. The object of opening the mind, as of the opening of the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.
If men will not be governed by the Ten Commandments, they shall be governed by ten thousand commandments.
The world will never starve for want of wonders; but only for want of wonder.
If there were no God, there would be no atheists.
It is not the distance of the earth from the sun, nor the sun's withdrawing itself, that makes a dark and gloomy day; but the interposition of clouds and vaporous exhalations. Neither is thy soul beyond the reach of the promise, nor does God withdraw Himself; but the vapours of thy carnal, unbelieving heart do cloud thee.
Maybe the atheist cannot find God for the same reason a thief cannot find a policeman.
Years are slipping away and time is flying. Graveyards are filling up and families are thinning. Death and judgement are getting nearer to us all. And yet you live like one asleep about your soul! What madness! What folly! What suicide can be worse than this? Awake before it is too late; awake, and arise from the dead, and live to God. Turn to Him who is sitting at the right hand of God, to be your Saviour and Friend. Turn to Christ, and cry mightily to Him about your soul. Holiness (Chapter 6)
Do not be so open-minded that your brains fall out.
I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.
How foolish are they who know not God! So many good things before their eyes, yet Him Who Is they fail to see.Confessions (Ch. Conversion)
When a Russian cosmonaut returned from space and reported that he had not found God, C.S. Lewis responded that this was like Hamlet going into the attic of his castle looking for Shakespeare. If there is a God, he wouldn't be another object in the universe that could be put in a lab and analyzed with empirical methods. He would relate to us the way a playwright relates to the characters in his play. We (characters) might be able to know quite a lot about the playwright, but only to the degree the author chooses to put information about himself in the play. The Reason for God (122)
We see the main cause of unbelief and despair. It is ignorance of the Father's interest in redemption; the ignorance of the transaction between the Father and the Son is the cause of this, 'because they know not him who sent me.'
To openly defy Him who is clothed with omnipotence, who can rend us in pieces or cast us into Hell any moment He pleases, is the very height of insanity.
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.
For children are innocent and love justice, while most of us are wicked and naturally prefer mercy.
I believe in getting into hot water; it keeps you clean.
Love is not blind; that is the last thing that it is. Love is bound; and the more it is bound the less it is blind.
The word "good" has many meanings. For example, if a man were to shoot his grandmother at a range of five hundred yards, I should call him a good shot, but not necessarily a good man.
To love means loving the unlovable. To forgive means pardoning the unpardonable. Faith means believing the unbelievable. Hope means hoping when everything seems hopeless.
The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.
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.
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2. J.C. Ryle (111)
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