A Quote by Gilbert K. Chesterton

All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Quote Topics

Accident Being Birth Death Democrats Disqualified Men Object Objects Tradition

Quote Author

Gilbert K. Chesterton
English - Writer
May 29, 1874 - June 14, 1936

Tradition is only democracy extended through time; it may be defined as an extension of the franchise. 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 are merely walking about. All democrats object to men being disqualified by accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by accident of death. Democracy tells us not to neglect a good man's opinion, even if he is our father.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

We can become anything. That is why injustice is impossible here. There may be the accident of birth, there is no accident of death. Nothing forces us to remain what we were.

John Berger

None of the modes by which a magistrate is appointed, popular election, the accident of the lot, or the accident of birth, affords, as far as we can perceive, much security for his being wiser than any of his neighbours.

Thomas Babington Macaulay

Olympic officials have disqualified a champion race walker after determining that he was doping. They disqualified him. The man said getting caught doping is almost as embarrassing as getting caught being a champion race walker.

Conan O'Brien

Being disabled should not mean being disqualified from having access to every aspect of life.

Emma Thompson

Thomas B. Macaulay

Washington is politics! Somehow if people have political objectives, then those objectives are automatically disqualified? If that's the case, the Democrats have no business being legitimized about anything because everything they do is political.

Rush Limbaugh

I compare it to being in a car accident. There's so much adrenaline rushing through you that you remember being in the accident but you don't remember any of the details.

Brooke Langton

Where is it written that if you don't like religion you are somehow disqualified from being a legitimate American? What was Mark Twain, a Russian?

Hendrik Hertzberg

There is a stupid humility that is quite common and when a person is afflicted with it, he is once and for all disqualified for being a disciple of knowledge.

Friedrich Nietzsche

All painting is an accident. But it's also not an accident, because one must select what part of the accident one chooses to preserve.

Francis Bacon

Of course, I didn't imagine then that I could have had a real relationship with any guy. I thought that by virtue of being me I was disqualified.

Curtis Sittenfeld

Because homecoming came first, and there was the homecoming court. The five guys on homecoming court were disqualified from being in the prom court. So being prom king was being sixth most popular.

Andy Richter

The creation of a virtual image is a form of accident. This explains why virtual reality is a cosmic accident. It's the accident of the real.

Paul Virilio

You look at the U.S. budget deficit, and you cannot help but feel that this is a serious accident waiting to happen. And not just a serious U.S. accident, but a serious global accident.