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
flower saws firsts
But they none of them create the psychological conditions in which I first saw, or desired to see, the flower.
moon religion sun
One can no more have a private religion than one can have a private sun or a private moon.
men law wish
When it wishes anything done which is really serious, it collects twelve of the ordinary men standing round. The same thing was done, if I remember right, by the Founder of Christianity.
real men yellow
People accuse journalism of being too personal; but to me it has always seemed far too impersonal. It is charged with tearing away the veils from private life; but it seems to me to be always dropping diaphanous but blinding veils between men and men. The Yellow Press is abused for exposing facts which are private; I wish the Yellow Press did anything so valuable. It is exactly the decisive individual touches that it never gives; and a proof of this is that after one has met a man a million times in the newspapers it is always a complete shock and reversal to meet him in real life.
criticism use
Criticism is only words about words, and of what use are words about such words as these?
rocks stones stories
The grinding power of the plain words of the Gospel story is like the power of mill-stones, and those who can read them simply enough will feel as if rocks had been rolled upon them.
men arguing apologetic
It is generally the man who is not ready to argue, who is ready to sneer.
christian gratitude tests
The test of happiness is gratitude.
christian sadness men
Christianity satisfies suddenly and perfectly man's ancestral instinct for being the right way up; satisfies it supremely in this, that by its creed Joy becomes something gigantic, and Sadness something special and small.
christian laughter heart
The vault above us is not deaf because the universe is an idiot; the silence is not the heartless silence of an endless and aimless world. Rather the silence around us is a small and pitiful stillness like the prompt stillness of a sick room. We are perhaps permitted tragedy as a sort of merciful comedy, because the frantic energy of divine things would knock us down like a drunken farce. We can take our own tears more lightly than we could take the tremendous levities of the angels. So we sit perhaps in a starry chamber of silence while the laughter of the heavens is too loud for us to hear.
certain
The more we are certain what good is, the more we shall see good in everything.
loneliness allies isolation
There are no words to express the abyss between isolation and having one ally.
men mad logic
In the main, and from the beginning of time, mysticism has kept men sane. The thing that has driven them mad was logic.
perspective pessimist optimist
I came to the conclusion that the optimist thought everything good except the pessimist, and that the pessimist thought everything bad, except himself.