Gilbert K. Chesterton
Gilbert K. Chesterton
Gilbert Keith Chesterton, KC*SG, better known as G. K. Chesterton, was an English writer, poet, philosopher, dramatist, journalist, orator, lay theologian, biographer, and literary and art critic. Chesterton is often referred to as the "prince of paradox." Time magazine has observed of his writing style: "Whenever possible Chesterton made his points with popular sayings, proverbs, allegories—first carefully turning them inside out."...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth29 May 1874
men long telling-the-truth
Whether a man chooses to tell the truth in long sentences or short jokes is a problem analogous to whether he chooses to tell the truth in French or in German.
writing good-times easier
It is much easier to write a good Times leading article than a good joke in Punch.
stars children blow
If we could destroy custom at a blow and see the stars as a child sees them, we should need no other apocalypse
faith stars real
It might reasonably be maintained that the true object of all human life is play. Earth is a task garden; heaven is a playground. To be at last in such secure innocence that one can juggle with the universe and the stars, to be so good that one can treat everything as a joke - that may be, perhaps, the real end and final holiday of human souls.
faith real inspiration
The idea of private property universal but private, the idea of families free but still families, of domesticity democratic but still domestic, of one man one house - this remains the real vision and magnet of mankind. The world may accept something more official and general, less human and intimate. But the world will be like a broken-hearted woman who makes a humdrum marriage because she may not make a happy one; Socialism may be the world's deliverance, but it is not the world's desire.
faith inspiration men
Doing nothing is sometimes one of the highest of the duties of man.
faith inspiration common-sense
A society is in decay, final or transitional, when common sense really becomes uncommon.
faith inspiration men
A man will not roll in the snow for a stream of tendency by which all things fulfill the law of their being. He will not go without food in the name of something, not ourselves, that makes for righteousness. He will do things like this, or pretty nearly like this, under quite a different impulse. He will do these things when he is in love.
faith inspiration men
Man is not merely an evolution but rather a revolution.
faith inspiration long
It has always been one of my unclerical sermons to myself, that that remark which Peter made on seeing the vision of a single hour, ought to be made by us all, in contemplating every panoramic change in the long Vision we call life... "It is good for us to be here - it is good for us to be here", repeating itself eternally.
faith inspiration believe
Hope means hoping when things are hopeless, or it is no virtue at all. And faith means believing the incredible, or it is no virtue at all.
unique church easy
In truth the Church is too unique to prove herself unique. For most popular and easy proof is by parallel; and here there is no parallel.
rags hot christianity
Christianity even when watered down is hot enough to boil all modern society to rags.
respect real people
Americans are a very backward people, with all the real virtues of a backward people; the patriarchal simplicity and human dignity of a democracy, and a respect for labor uncorrupted by cynicism.