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
action social robbing
I would never commit the positively anti-social action of robbing a bank, or worse still, working in one.
action believe falls however men unless
I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that falls on them unless they act.
catching discovered miss train
The only way of catching a train I have ever discovered is to miss the train before.
christian difficult found ideal left tried
The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.
brute mere sort
The mere brute pleasure of reading the sort of pleasure a cow must have in grazing.
man
Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions.
funny food sarcasm
The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.
art sunset bad-ass
All architecture is great architecture after sunset; perhaps architecture is really a nocturnal art, like the art of fireworks.
men space being-there
It is only great men who take up a great space by not being there.
plato
Plato was right, but not quite right.
simple light mind
The academic mind reflects infinity, and is full of light by the simple process of being shallow and standing still.
mean criticism boots
Either criticism is no good at all (a very defensible position) or else criticism means saying about an author the very things that would have made him jump out of his boots.
fighting past asceticism
Catholicism is not ritualism; it may in the future be fighting some sort of superstitious and idolatrous exaggeration of ritual. Catholicism is not asceticism; it has again and again in the past repressed fanatical and cruel exaggerations of asceticism. Catholicism is not mere mysticism; it is even now defending human reason against the mere mysticism of the Pragmatists.
school mind movement
It is largely because the free-thinkers, as a school, have hardly made up their minds whether they want to be more optimist or more pessimist than Christianity that their small but sincere movement has failed.