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"The vulgar man is always the most distinguished, for the very desire to be distinguished is vulgar."
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936), British author. "The Boy," All Things Considered (1908). |
"If prosperity is regarded as the reward of virtue it will be regarded as the symptom of virtue."
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936), British author. "The Book of Job," G.K.C. as M.C. (1929). |
"A cosmic philosophy is not constructed to fit a man; a cosmic philosophy is constructed to fit a cosmos. A man can no more possess a private religion than he can possess a private sun and moon."
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936), British author. "The Book of Job," G.K.C. as M.C. (1929). |
"Half a truth is better than no politics."
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936), British author. "The Boy," All Things Considered (1908). |
"The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all."
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936), British author. Ratcliffe, in The Man Who Was Thursday, ch. 11 (1908). |
"It is not funny that anything else should fall down; only that a man should fall down.... Why do we laugh? Because it is a gravely religious matter: it is the Fall of Man. Only man can be absurd: for only man can be dignified."
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936), British author. "Spiritualism," All Things Considered (1908). |
"A radical generally meant a man who thought he could somehow pull up the root without affecting the flower. A conservative generally meant a man who wanted to conserve everything except his own reason for conserving anything."
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936), British author. Quoted in Illustrated London News (July 3, 1920). |
"The Renaissance was, as much as anything, a revolt from the logic of the Middle Ages. We speak of the Renaissance as the birth of rationalism; it was in many ways the birth of irrationalism. It is true that the medieval Schoolmen, who had produced the finest logic that the world has ever seen, had in later years produced more logic than the world can ever be expected to stand. They had loaded and lumbered up the world with libraries of mere logic; and some effort was bound to be made to free it from such endless chains of deduction. Therefore, there was in the Renaissance a wild touch of revolt, not against religion but against reason.... When all is said, there is something a little sinister in the number of mad people in Shakespeare. We say that he uses his fools to brighten the dark background of tragedy; I think he sometimes uses them to darken it."
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936), British author. Quoted in "The Renaissance," A Certain World: A Commonplace Book, ed. W.H. Auden, Viking (1970). |
"Buddhism is not a creed, it is a doubt."
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936), British author. Professor de Worms, in The Man Who Was Thursday, ch. 14 (1908). |
"The mere brute pleasure of reading—the sort of pleasure a cow must have in grazing."
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936), British author. Quoted in Dudley Barker, G.K. Chesterton (1973). |
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Gilbert Keith Chesterton
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