K. Chesterton
K. Chesterton
baby stars children
There is always in the healthy mind an obscure prompting that religion teaches us rather to dig than to climb; that if we could once understand the common clay of earth we should understand everything. Similarly, we have the sentiment that if we could destroy custom at a blow and see the stars as a child sees them, we should need no other apocalypse. This is the great truth which has always lain at the back of baby-worship, and which will support it to the end.
men doubt dogma
Truths turn into dogmas the instant that they are disputed. Thus every man who utters a doubt defines a religion.
law stripes bars
You can free things from alien or accidental laws, but not from the laws of their own nature. You may, if you like, free a tiger from his bars; but do not free him from his stripes.
religious philosophy philosophical
Religious and philosophical beliefs are, indeed, as dangerous as fire, and nothing can take from them that beauty of danger. But there is only one way of really guarding ourselves against the excessive danger of them, and that is to be steeped in philosophy and soaked in religion.
political speech political-speeches
Precisely because our political speeches are meant to be reported, they are not worth reporting. Precisely because they are carefully designed to be read, nobody reads them.
jesus men answers
If a man says that he is Jesus Christ, it is no answer to tell him that the world denies his divinity; for the world denied Christ's.
men broken done
Obviously if any actions, even a lunatic's, can be causeless, determinism is done for. If the chain of causation can be broken for a madman, it can be broken for a man.
night men race
The only thing that has kept the race of men from the mad extremes of the convent and the pirate-galley, the night-club and the lethal chamber, has been mysticism — the belief that logic is misleading, and that things are not what they seem.
running spiritual philosophy
The philosophy of this world may be founded on facts, but its business is run on spiritual impressions and atmospheres.
angel brings heaven pour thank
If an angel out of heaven / Brings you other things to drink, / Thank him for his kind attentions, / Go and pour them down the sink.
golf two scotch
The determining bulk of Scotch people had heard of golf ever since they had heard of God and often considered the two as of equal importance.
needs
We need to be reminded more than we need to be instructed
men long telling-the-truth
Whether a man chooses to tell the truth in long sentences or short jokes is a problem analogous to whether he chooses to tell the truth in French or in German.
mother children father
The triangle of truisms, of father, mother and child, cannot be destroyed; it can only destroy those civilizations which disregard it.