K. Chesterton
K. Chesterton
children philosophy drinking
The outer ring of Christianity is a rigid guard of ethical abnegations and professional priests; but inside that inhuman guard you will find the old human life dancing like children and drinking wine like men; for Christianity is the only frame for pagan freedom. But in the modern philosophy the case is opposite; it is its outer ring that is obviously artistic and emancipated; its despair is within.
thoughtful freethinker
Freethinkers are occasionally thoughtful, though never free.
civilization obvious-things decay
Every high civilization decays by forgetting obvious things.
men world lasts
If the world becomes pagan and perishes, the last man left alive would do well to quote the Iliad and die.
wild-places mind way
The mind that finds its way to wild places is the poet's; but the mind that never finds its way back is the lunatic's.
tired may orthodoxy
It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never gotten tired of making them
use worship should
Idolatry is when you worship what you should use, and use what you should worship.
important way facts
The most important fact about the subject of education is that there is no such thing. Education is not a subject and it does not deal in subjects. It is instead the transfer of a way of life.
stars hands literature
The hands that had made the sun and stars were too small to reach the huge heads of the cattle. Upon this paradox, we might almost say upon this jest, all the literature of our faith is founded.
wise men wings
I have myself a poetical enthusiasm for pigs, and the paradise of my fancy is one where pigs have wings. But it is only men, especially wise men, who discuss whether pigs can fly; we have no particular proof that pigs ever discuss it.
stories highest good-story
The highest and noblest thing that history can be is a good story.
definitions decadence
To be wrong, and to be carefully wrong, that is the definition of decadence.
men strange assumption
Unless a man starts afresh about things, he will certainly do nothing effective. Unless a man starts on the strange assumption that he has never existed before, it is quite certain that he will never exist afterwards.
law people community
What is the good of telling a community that it has every liberty except the liberty to make laws? The liberty to make laws is what constitutes a free people.