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 progress looks
Men invent new ideals because they dare not attempt old ideals. They look forward with enthusiasm, because they are afraid to look back.
attitude boredom long
My attitude toward progress has passed from antagonism to boredom. I have long ceased to argue with people who prefer Thursday to Wednesday because it is Thursday.
progress-of-society progress cult
Progress is a comparative of which we have not settled the superlative.
timeless
Aesthetes never do anything but what they are told.
men use reason
When learned men begin to use their reason, then I generally discover that they haven't got any.
real world opera
We have had no good comic operas of late, because the real world has been more comic than any possible opera.
timeless exaggeration ifs
All the exaggerations are right, if they exaggerate the right thing.
suicidal people effort
The person who is really in revolt is the optimist, who generally lives and dies in a desperate and suicidal effort to persuade other people how good they are.
military men elderly
A change of opinions is almost unknown in an elderly military man.
atheist manage
Somehow one can never manage to be an atheist.
atheist men empires
Even in an empire of atheists the dead man is always sacred.
atheist men logic
I do not feel any contempt for an atheist, who is often a man limited and constrained by his own logic to a very sad simplification.
atheist atheism argument
There are arguments for atheism, and they do not depend, and never did depend, upon science. They are arguable enough, as far as they go, upon a general survey of life; only it happens to be a superficial survey of life.
atheist optimism miracle
Progress is Providence without God. That is, it is a theory that everything has always perpetually gone right by accident. It is a sort of atheistic optimism, based on an everlasting coincidence far more miraculous than a miracle.