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
rolling made drunkards
Before the Roman came to Rye or out to severn strode, / The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road.
weather clouds darkness
We all feel the riddle of the earth without anyone to point it out. The mystery of life is the plainest part of it. The clouds and curtains of darkness, the confounding vapors, these are the daily weather of this world.
men imagination quality
The original quality in any man of imagination is imagery.
pride men political
The diseased pride [of artistic individualists] was not even conscious of a public interest, and would have found all political terms utterly tasteless and insignificant. It was no longer a question of one man one vote, but of one man one universe.
romance insecurity strange
Romance is the combination of something that is strange with something that is secure.
powerful passion men
Powerful men who have powerful passions use much of their strength in forging chains for themselves.
simplicity world modern
The modern world... has no notion except that of simplifying something by destroying nearly everything.
silence modern tyranny
Modern toleration is really a tyranny. It is a tyranny because it is a silence.
black-and-white two phrases
They have invented a phrase, a phrase that is a black and white contradiction in two words - 'free-love' - as if a lover ever had been, or ever could be, free.
men boys never-quit
A man can never quite understand a boy, even when he has been a boy.
philosophy cat thinking
...But nature does not say that cats are more valuable than mice; nature makes no remark on the subject. She does not even say that the cat is enviable or the mouse pitiable. We think the cat superior because we have (or most of us have) a particular philosophy to the effect that life is better than death. But if the mouse were a German pessimist mouse, he might not think that the cat had beaten him at all. He might think he had beaten the cat by getting to the grave first.
men becoming mass
The Mass is not only about God becoming man, it is about Man becoming more himself.
mistake ideas nine
Nine out of ten of what we call new ideas are simply old mistakes.
monday philosophy believe
An imbecile habit has arisen in modern controversy of saying that such and such a creed can be held in one age but cannot be held in another. Some dogma, we are told, was credible in the twelfth century, but is not credible in the twentieth. You might as well say that a certain philosophy can be believed on Mondays, but cannot be believed on Tuesdays. You might as well say of a view of the cosmos that it was suitable to half-past three, but not suitable to half-past four. What a man can believe depends upon his philosophy, not upon the clock or the century.