Wednesday, January 18, 2012

G. K. Chesterton....................


















Gilbert Keith Chesterton, aka "the Prince of Paradox", said some
really cool stuff.  Chesterton (1874 - 1936) was a British writer,
poet, philosopher, lecturer, journalist, and critic.  As a writer he
was incredibly prolific, writing some 80 books, hundreds of poems
and short stories as well as a few plays.  He also wrote countless
essays.  It is no wonder that Chesterton is considered a quote
machine.  Enjoy a smattering:

He is only a very shallow critic who cannot see an eternal
rebel in the heart of the Conservative.

Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to
become their property that they may more perfectly respect it.

Many clever men like you have trusted to civilization. Many
clever Babylonians, many clever Egyptians, many clever men
at the end of Rome. Can you tell me, in a world that is
flagrant with the failures of civilisation, what there is
particularly immortal about yours?

The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives
and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on
making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent
mistakes from being corrected.

The riddles of God are more satisfying than the solutions
of man.

Men do not differ much about what things they will call evils;
they differ enormously about what evils they will call
excusable.

To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to
be right in doing it

All government is an ugly necessity

It isn't that they can't see the solution. It is that they can't
see the problem.

Never invoke the gods unless you really want them to
appear. It annoys them very much.

I've searched all the parks in all the cities — and found no
statues of Committees.

The poor object to being governed badly, while the rich
object to being governed at all.

There is a road from the eye to the heart that does not go
through the intellect. Men do not quarrel about the meaning
of sunsets; they never dispute that the hawthorn says the
best and wittiest thing about the spring.

The most unfathomable schools and sages have never
attained to the gravity which dwells in the eyes of a baby
of three months old. It is the gravity of astonishment at
the universe, and astonishment at the universe is not
mysticism, but a transcendent common-sense

There is a great man who makes every man feel small. But
the real great man is the man who makes every man feel
great.

The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting.
It has been found difficult; and left untried.

No comments:

Post a Comment