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1e3562b
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The point is not that this world is too sad to love or too glad not to love; the point is that when you do love a thing, its gladness is a reason for loving it, and its sadness a reason for loving it more.
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sadness
love
gladness
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G.K. Chesterton |
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c535b0a
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The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children's games from the beginning, and will probably do it till the end, which is a nuisance for the few people who grow up. And one of the games to which it is most attached is called "Keep to-morrow dark," and which is also named (by the rustics in Shropshire, I have no doubt) "Cheat the Prophet." The players listen very carefully and respectfully to all that the..
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G.K. Chesterton |
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c8e8150
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I could forgive you even your cruelty if it were not for your calm.
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G.K. Chesterton |
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d27f3c3
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I did try to found a little heresy of my own; and when I had put the last touches to it, I discovered that it was orthodoxy.
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G.K. Chesterton |
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ab9e174
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Suppose, my dear Chadd, suppose it is we who are the idiots because we are not afraid of devils in the dark?
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G.K. Chesterton |
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dda9065
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All the great groups that stood about the Cross represent in one way or another the great historical truth of the time; that the world could not save itself. Man could do no more. Rome and Jerusalem and Athens and everything else were going down like a sea turned into a slow cataract. Externally indeed the ancient world was still at its strongest; it is always at that moment that the inmost weakness begins. But in order to understand that w..
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humanity
rome
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G.K. Chesterton |
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995b049
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I shall approach. Before taking off his hat, I shall take off my own. I shall say, "The Marquis de Saint Eustache, I believe." He will say, "The celebrated Mr. Syme, I presume." He will say in the most exquisite French, "How are you?" I shall reply in the most exquisite Cockney, "Oh, just the Syme."' 'Oh shut it...what are you really going to do?' 'But it was a lovely catechism! ...Do let me read it to you. It has only forty-three questions..
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G.K. Chesterton |
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f90eb65
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Evil always wins through the strength of its splendid dupes; and there has in all ages been a disastrous alliance between abnormal innocence and abnormal sin.
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useful-idiots
innocence
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G.K. Chesterton |
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10ea348
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In the glad old days, before the rise of modern morbidities...it used to be thought a disadvantage to be misunderstood.
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writing
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G.K. Chesterton |
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0bb49cf
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The Aristocrat The Devil is a gentleman, and asks you down to stay At his little place at What'sitsname (it isn't far away). They say the sport is splendid; there is always something new, And fairy scenes, and fearful feats that none but he can do; He can shoot the feathered cherubs if they fly on the estate, Or fish for Father Neptune with the mermaids for a bait; He scaled amid the staggering stars that precipice, the sky, And blew his tr..
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misery
devil
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G.K. Chesterton |
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2f5fef1
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if a man would make his world large, he must be always making himself small.
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G.K. Chesterton |
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a6932e8
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As for the general view that the Church was discredited by the War--they might as well say that the Ark was discredited by the Flood. When the world goes wrong, it proves rather that the Church is right. The Church is justified, not because her children do not sin, but because they do.
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war
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G.K. Chesterton |
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008bc89
|
somehow one must love the world without being worldly.
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G.K. Chesterton |
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4791c1b
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In one sense, at any rate, it is more valuable to read bad literature than good literature. Good literature may tell us the mind of one man; but bad literature may tell us the mind of many men. A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author. It does much more than that, it tells us the truth about its readers; and, oddly enough, it tells us this all the more the more cynical and immoral b..
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G.K. Chesterton |
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84854b5
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There are a great many good people, and a great many sane people here this afternoon. Unfortunately, by a kind of coincidence, all the good people are mad, and all the sane people are wicked.
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G.K. Chesterton |
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870f7ec
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But I was frightfully fond of the universe and wanted to address it by a diminutive. I often did so; and it never seemed to mind.
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G.K. Chesterton |
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694b1e9
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All true friendliness begins with fire and food and drink and the recognition of rain or frost. ...Each human soul has in a sense to enact for itself the gigantic humility of the Incarnation. Every man must descend into the flesh to meet mankind.
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meeting-people
incarnation
friendliness
hospitality
humility
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G.K. Chesterton |
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9903c8e
|
St Thomas (Aqinas) loved books and lived on books... When asked for what he thanked God most, he answered simply, 'I have understood every page I ever read'.
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pride
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G.K. Chesterton |
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fdfd5c5
|
A mystic is a man who separates heaven and earth even if he enjoys them both.
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mysticism
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G.K. Chesterton |
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1aa086b
|
The suburb of Saffron Park lay on the sunset side of London, as red and ragged as a cloud of sunset. It was built of a bright brick throughout; its sky-line was fantastic, and even its ground plan was wild. It had been the outburst of a speculative builder, faintly tinged with art, who called its architecture sometimes Elizabethan and sometimes Queen Anne, apparently under the impression that the two sovereigns were identical. It was descri..
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G.K. Chesterton |
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30a7c05
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Madness does not come by breaking out, but by giving in; by settling down in some dirty, little, self-repeating circle of ideas; by being tamed.
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G.K. Chesterton |
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eec4e6b
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The modern materialists are not permitted to doubt; they are forbidden to believe.
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G.K. Chesterton |
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5aa98e4
|
Indeed the Book of Job avowedly only answers mystery with mystery. Job is comforted with riddles; but he is comforted. Herein is indeed a type, in the sense of a prophecy, of things speaking with authority. For when he who doubts can only say, 'I do not understand,' it is true that he who knows can only reply or repeat 'You do not understand.' And under that rebuke there is always a sudden hope in the heart; and the sense of something that ..
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G.K. Chesterton |
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02f1439
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Oh, most unhappy man,' he cried, 'try to be happy! You have red hair like your sister.' My red hair, like red flames, shall burn up the world,' said Gregory.
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red-hair
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G.K. Chesterton |
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2eeb16d
|
the function of imagination is not to make strange things settled, so much as to make settled things strange; not so much to make wonders facts as to make facts wonders.
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G.K. Chesterton |
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a1e2a3b
|
I said to him, "Shall I tell you where the men are who believe most in themselves? For I can tell you. I know of men who believe in themselves more colossally than Napoleon or Caesar. I know where flames the fixed star of certainty and success. I can guide you to the thrones of the Super-men. The men who really believe in themselves are all in lunatic asylums."
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lunatic
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G.K. Chesterton |
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35c8f2f
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Thrift is poetic because it is creative; waste is unpoetic because it is waste.
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thrift
waste
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G.K. Chesterton |
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7fb76e2
|
Nobody can imagine how nothing could turn into something. Nobody can get an inch nearer to it by explaining how something could turn into something else. It is really far more logical to start by saying 'In the beginning God created heaven and earth' even if you only mean 'In the beginning some unthinkable power began some unthinkable process.' For God is by its nature a name of mystery, and nobody ever supposed that man could imagine how a..
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evolution
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G.K. Chesterton |
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10565e7
|
One of the great disadvantages of hurry is that it takes such a long time.
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time
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G.K. Chesterton |
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c35f0d0
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I have never been able to understand where people got the idea that democracy was in some way opposed to tradition. It is obvious that tradition is only democracy extended through time. It is trusting to a consensus of common human voices rather than to some isolated or arbitrary record. . . . 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 s..
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G.K. Chesterton |
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9f505a4
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The devil can quote Scripture for his purpose; and the text of Scripture which he now most commonly quotes is, "The Kingdom of heaven is within you." That text has been the stay and support of more Pharisees and prigs and self-righteous spiritual bullies than all the dogmas in creation; it has served to identify self-satisfaction with the peace that passes all understanding. And the text to be quoted in answer to it is that which declares t..
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scripture
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G.K. Chesterton |
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0d4c56d
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And the more I considered Christianity, the more I found that while it had established a rule and order, the chief aim of of that order was to give room for good things to run wild.
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good
philosophy
truth
theology
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G.K. Chesterton |
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27f5c76
|
Let us suppose we are confronted with a desperate thing - say Pimlico. If we think what is really best for Pimlico we shall find the thread of thought leads to the throne of the mystic and the arbitrary. It is not enough for a man to disapprove of Pimlico; in that case he will merely cut his throat or move to Chelsea. Nor, certainly, is it enough for a man to approve of Pimlico; for then it will remain Pimlico, which would be awful. The onl..
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history
love
civilization
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G.K. Chesterton |
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4750b27
|
Listen to me," cried Syme with extraordinary emphasis. "Shall I tell you the secret of the whole world? It is that we have only known the back of the world. We see everything from behind, and it looks brutal. That is not a tree, but the back of a tree. That is not a cloud, but the back of a cloud. Cannot you see that everything is stooping and hiding a face? If we could only get round in front -"
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extraordinary-emphasis
secret-of-the-world
gabriel-syme
hiding
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G.K. Chesterton |
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0edc3e5
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Democracy is reproached with saying that the majority is always right. But progress says that the minority is always right.
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progress
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G.K. Chesterton |
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48ca6ec
|
It is at least as possible for a Philadelphian to feel the presence of Penn and Franklin as for an Englishman to see the ghosts of Alfred and Becket. Tradition does not mean a dead town; it does not mean that the living are dead but that the dead are alive. It means that it still matters what Penn did two hundred years ago or what Franklin did a hundred years ago; I never could feel in New York that it mattered what anybody did an hour ago.
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philadelphia
tradition
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G.K. Chesterton |
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c8642fc
|
It may be said of Socialism, therefore, that its friends recommended it as increasing equality, while its foes resisted it as decreasing liberty....The compromise eventually made was one of the most interesting and even curious cases in history. It was decided to do everything that had ever been denounced in Socialism, and nothing that had ever been desired in it...we proceeded to prove that it was possible to sacrifice liberty without gain..
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G.K. Chesterton |
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56d66e8
|
You cannot grow a beard in a moment of passion.
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G.K. Chesterton |
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ec7c867
|
It is always simple to fall; there are an infinity of angles at which one falls, only one at which one stands. To have fallen into any one of the fads from Gnosticism to Christian Science would indeed have been obvious and tame. But to have avoided them all has been one whirling adventure; and in my vision the heavenly chariot flies thundering through the ages, the dull heresies sprawling and prostrate, the wild truth reeling but erect.
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G.K. Chesterton |
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9e29257
|
Joy, which was the small publicity of the pagan, is the gigantic secret of the Christian.
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G.K. Chesterton |
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2cbd0ca
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Individually, men may present a more or less rational appearance, eating, sleeping, and scheming. But humanity a a whole is changeful, mystical, fickle, delightful. Men are men, but Man is a woman.
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G.K. Chesterton |
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2e6d77d
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We say that the most dangerous criminal now is the entirely lawless modern philosopher. Compared to him, burglars and bigamists are essentially moral men; my heart goes out to them. They accept the essential ideal of man; they merely seek it wrongly. Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it. But philosophers dislike property as property; they wish to destroy the..
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G.K. Chesterton |
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cef166a
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If we are bound to improve, we need not trouble to improve. The pure doctrine of progress is the best of all reasons for not being a progressive.
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G.K. Chesterton |
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ec3a4f7
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That young man with the long, auburn hair and the impudent face - that young man was not really a poet; but surely he was a poem.
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poet
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G.K. Chesterton |