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Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes - Page 39

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A great deal of contemporary criticism reads to me like a man saying, 'Of course I do not like green cheese. I am very fond of brown sherry.

A great deal of contemporary criticism reads to me like a man saying, 'Of course I do not like green cheese. I am very fond of brown sherry.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Men, Criticism, Green
1933 All I Survey,'On Jonathan Swift'.

Before the Roman came to Rye or out to severn strode, / The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Rolling, Made, Drunkards
'The Rolling English Road' (1914)

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.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Pride, Men, Political
George Bernard Shaw "The Progressive" (1910)

Romance is the combination of something that is strange with something that is secure.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Romance, Insecurity, Strange
Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.6, Simon and Schuster

If I think the universe is triangular, and you think it is square, there cannot be room for two universes. We may argue politely, we may argue humanely, we may argue with great mutual benefit: but, obviously, we must argue.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Thinking, Squares, Mutual Benefit
Illustrated London News, 10 Oct. 1908

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.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Black And White, Two, Phrases
The Defendant "A Defence of Rash Vows" (1902)

A man can never quite understand a boy, even when he has been a boy.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Boys, Men, Never Quit

...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.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Philosophy, Cat, Thinking
Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.77, Simon and Schuster

Nine out of ten of what we call new ideas are simply old mistakes.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Mistake, Ideas, Nine

The word 'heresy' not only means no longer being wrong; it practically means being clear-headed and courageous. The word 'orthodoxy' not only no longer means being right; it practically means being wrong

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Mean, Orthodoxy, Courageous
Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.125, Simon and Schuster

There is a certain poetic value, and that a genuine one, in this sense of having missed the full meaning of things. There is beauty, not only in wisdom, but in this dazed and dramatic ignorance.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Ignorance, Poetic, Dramatic
"Robert Browning". Book by Gilbert K. Chesterton, 1903.

When we look upon lives so human and yet so small, we feel as if we ourselves were enlarged to an embarrassing bigness of stature. We feel the same kind of obligation to these creatures that a deity might feel if he had created something that he could not understand.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Deities, Looks, Might
"The Defendant". Book by Gilbert K. Chesterton, 1901.

Gratitude, being nearly the greatest of human duties, is also nearly the most difficult.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Gratitude, Duty, Difficult

Fairy tales are more than true.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Dragons, Fairy Stories, Fairy Tale

Tradition is only democracy extended through time; it may be defined as an extension of the franchise. Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who are merely walking about. All democrats object to men being disqualified by accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by accident of death. Democracy tells us not to neglect a good man's opinion, even if he is our father.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Father, Mean, Men
'Orthodoxy' (1908) ch. 4

English experience indicates that when the two great political parties agree about something it is generally wrong.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Party, Government, Two

Folk-lore means that the soul is sane, but that the universe is wild and full of marvels. Realism means that the world is dull and full of routine, but that the soul is sick and screaming. The problem of the fairy tale is: what will a healthy man do with a fantastic world? The problems of the modern novel is: what will a madman do with a dull world? In the fairy tales the cosmos goes mad; but the hero does not go mad. In the modern novels the hero is mad before the book begins, and suffers from the harsh steadiness and cruel sanity of the cosmos.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Hero, Book, Mean

The reason that angels fly is that they take themselves so lightly.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Angel, Reason

Physical science is like simple addition: it is either infallible or it is false.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Simple, Infallible, Physical Science

If the apple hit Newton’s nose, Newton’s nose hit the apple.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Apples, Noses, Newton
Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.36, Simon and Schuster

Christian Science … is the direct denial both of science and of Christianity, for Science rests wholly on the recognition of truth and Christianity on the recognition of pain.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Christian, Truth, Pain

The artistic temperament is a disease that afflicts amateurs. It is a disease which arises from men no having sufficient power of expression to utter and get rid of the element of art in their being.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Art, Men, Expression
1905 Heretics, ch.17.

It is a mathematical fact that if a line be not perfectly directed towards a point, it will actually go further away from it as it comes nearer to it.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Lines, Facts, Mathematical

The best way that a man could test his readiness to encounter the common variety of mankind would be to climb down a chimney into any house at random, and get on as well as possible with the people inside. And that is essentially what each one of us did on the day that he was born.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Men, People, House
Gilbert K. Chesterton (1909). “Heretics”

Humility is the luxurious art of reducing ourselves to a point, not to a small thing or a large one, but to a thing with no size at all, so that to it all the cosmic things are what they really are - of immeasurable stature.

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Art, Humility, Size
"The Defendant". Book by Gilbert K. Chesterton, 1901.

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