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
art sunset bad-ass
All architecture is great architecture after sunset; perhaps architecture is really a nocturnal art, like the art of fireworks.
art philosophy reality
Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all.
artist creative criticism
The criminal is the creative artist; the detective only the critic.
art mean common-sense
We have all forgotten what we really are. All that we call common sense and rationality and practicality and positivism only means that for certain dead levels of our life we forget that we have forgotten. All that we call spirit and art and ecstasy only means that for one awful instant we remember that we forget.
artist touching shadow
Every true artist feels that he is touching transcendental truths; that his images are shadows of things seen through the veil.
believe artist clouds
Every true artist does feel, consciously or unconsciously, that he is touching transcendental truths; that his images are shadows of things seen through the veil. In other words, the natural mystic does know that there is something there, something behind the clouds or within the trees; but he believes that the pursuit of beauty is the way to find it; that imagination is a sort of incantation that can call it up.
art rebel visionaries
It is a quaint comment on the notion that the English are practical and the French merely visionary, that we were rebels in arts while they were rebels in arms.
spiritual art brain
At the back of our brains is a blaze of astonishment at our own existence. The object of the artistic and spiritual life is to dig for this sunrise of wonder.
art contentment artist
A small artist is content with art; a great artist is content with nothing except everything.
art school should-have
There is nothing harder to learn than painting and nothing which most people take less trouble about learning. An art school is a place where about three people work with feverish energy and everybody else idles to a degree that I should have conceived unattainable by human nature.
art lines might
A fairly clear line separated advertisement from art. ... The first effect of the triumph of the capitalist (if we allow him to triumph) will be that that line of demarcation will entirely disappear. There will be no art that might not just as well be advertisement.
men artist bombs
The man who throws a bomb is an artist, because he prefers a great moment to everything.
art soul faces
For the enjoyment of the artist the mask must be to some extent moulded on the face. What he makes outside him must correspond to something inside him; he can only make his effects out of some of the materials of his soul.
art men wish
A man cannot have the energy to produce good art without having the energy to wish to pass beyond it.