Wisdom of Mr. Chesterton

Description

Beloved Catholic author Gilbert Keith Chesterton was a poet, a journalist, a mystery novelist, a people's theologian and, some would say, a prophet who only by looking at the world upside-down could see it clearly enough to predict its future. He was also a wordsmith of the highest order, capable of making words dance with delight upon the page. The Wisdom of Mr. Chesterton is a unique collection of the pithiest and most profound sentences ever to spring from his pen. Editor and renowned apologist Dave Armstrong has scoured Chesterton's voluminous writings, even the most obscure, gathering together his choicest quotes and meticulously organizing them by topic. Sure to delight readers with its wit and charm.

Sujets

• Catholic Church
• Philosophie et théologie

Informations

• Publié par: St. Benedict Press LLC
• Date de parution: 01 octobre 2009
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781935302940
• Langue: English

Extrait

of M R . C HESTERTON
of M R . C HESTERTON
The Very Best
Q UIPS , Q UOTES, AND C RACKS
from the Pen of G.K. Chesterton
Edited by DAVE ARMSTRONG
Copyright 2009 by Dave Armstrong
All rights reserved. Brief selections of text from this book may be quoted or copied for non-profit use without permission, and brief selections may be quoted by a reviewer in a re- view without permission. Otherwise, no part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.
ISBN: 978-1-935302-19-3 ISBN: 978-1-935302-94-0 ISBN: 193-530-285-x
Cover Design by Christopher J. Pelicano
For related reading on the author s blog, see the following web page: G. K. Chesterton: The Colossal Genius http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2006/04/gk-chesterton-colossal-genius-links.html
Printed and Bound in the United States of America
Saint Benedict Press, LLC Charlotte, North Carolina 2009
To G. K. Chesterton: surely one of the most insightful men who ever lived.
A wise man is mightier than a strong man, and a man of knowledge than he who has strength.
-Proverbs 24:5
he proverb, however, like many other widely quoted maxims, is really as true as is consistent with meaning nearly the opposite of what it says.
And it has often been more to the advantage of a man to say one good thing in one sentence than to say twenty good things in two thousand sentences.
(All I Survey, ch. 30)
I never read a line of Christian apologetics. I read as little as I can of them now.
(Orthodoxy, ch. 6)
Dedication
Introduction:
Chesterton Aphorisms (By Alphabetical Topic)
Bibliography of Sources By Abbreviations
Bibliography of Sources in Chronological Order
Index of Quotations Categorized by Sources
Index of Topics
Introduction
n aphorism is a terse, pithy, astute, proverb-like saying that comments on some general truth; a maxim; an adage. G. K. Chesterton was an absolute master of the form: one of the very best in the English language. His common sense, whimsy and wit, essential optimism, characteristic joviality, and deep Catholic faith further enrich his already wise aphorisms.
Bessie Graham cogently described Chesterton in this regard: Chesterton is a master of paradox. His style is brilliantly clever and full of aphorisms, which are usually platitudes said backwards, or stood on their heads, as he himself expresses it, to attract attention. 1
Biographer Maisie Ward delightfully caught the essence of Chesterton s peculiar gift:
I think nearly all his paradoxes were either the startling expression of an entirely neglected truth, or the startling re-emphasis of the neglected side of a truth. Once, he said: It is a paradox, but it is God, and not I, who should have the credit of it. [P]aradox must be of the nature of things because of God s infinity and the limitations of the world and of man s mind. To us limited beings God can express His idea only in fragments. We can bring together apparent contradictions in those fragments whereby a greater truth is suggested. If we do this in a sudden or incongruous manner we startle the unprepared and arouse the cry of paradox. But if we will not do it we shall miss a great deal of truth.
Chesterton also saw many proverbs and old sayings as containing a truth which the people who constantly repeated them had forgotten. The world was asleep and must be awakened. The world had gone placidly mad and must be violently restored to sanity. That the methods he used annoyed some is undeniable, but he did force people to think, even if they raged at him as the unaccustomed muscles came into play. 2
In this semi-comprehensive collection, the following self-imposed requirements determined inclusion:
1. Selections must be single, complete sentences (not just portions of sentences; that is, a clause).
2. The aphorisms (almost by definition) must have a general application, even if specifics are mentioned.
3. Selected aphorisms must stand on their own as more or less complete thoughts or ideas.
I present the citations in the order they appear in Chesterton s works, and chronologically from one work to the next, so that development in Chesterton s thought over time can be observed. Anyone can conveniently access these primary writings via my own Chesterton web page, and track down more details, such as a fuller context or (if provided) a page number, by following the book links there.
I hope you enjoy reading these quotations as much as I enjoyed compiling them. It s a rich feast for intellect and spirit.
1 Bookman s Manual: A Guide to Literature (New York: R. R. Bowker Co., 1921, 220)
2 Gilbert Keith Chesterton (New York: Sheed Ward, 1943, Chapter XI)
Abortion

If the mother and the baby are both independent individuals, the mother must be as independent of the baby as the baby of the mother; and the mother must be free to say, I do not like this individual, and throw the baby out of the window.
(ILN, Being Bored With Ideas, 3-13-26)
Even the most commercial cities of antiquity, like Tyre and Carthage, were not so lively and entertaining when they were making out bills-of-lading or recording the fluctuation of the shekel as compared with the drachma, as when the more poetic side of their nature led them to throw babies into the furnace of Moloch.
(ILN, The Preservation of the Cities, 8-7-26)
Unless we have a moral principle about such delicate matters as marriage and murder, the whole world will become a welter of exceptions with no rules.
There will be so many hard cases that everything will go soft.
But I do insist that they will be murdered, sooner or later, if we accept in every department the principle of the easiest way out.
(ILN, The New Immoral Philosophy, 9-21-29)
Suppose something of the type of Compulsory Sterilisation or Compulsory Contraception really stalks through the modern State, leading the march of human progress through abortion to infanticide.
If the English received it, they would accept it as law-abiding citizens; that is, as something between welltrained servants and bewildered children.
(WEL, Where is the Paradox? )
[see also: Abstinence, Birth Control, Contraception, Eugenics, Euphemisms, Euthanasia, Family, Feminism, Home, Motherhood, Sexuality]
Abstinence

In fact, the whole theory of the Church on virginity might be symbolised in the statement that white is a colour: not merely the absence of a colour.
(O, ch. 6)
Chastity does not mean abstention from sexual wrong; it means something flaming, like Joan of Arc.
(TRE, ch. 2)
Everybody has always known about birth-control, even if it took the wild and unthinkable form of self-control.
(ILN, The Friends of Frankness, and Euphemism, 6-30-28)
[see also: Birth Control, Contraception, Marriage, Sexuality]
Adventure

The supreme adventure is being born.
(H, ch. 14)
An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered.
(ATC, ch. 4)
Man must have just enough faith in himself to have adventures, and just enough doubt of himself to enjoy them.
(O, ch. 7)
[see also: Children, Fairy-Tales, Imagination, Mythology, Nature, Romanticism, Stories, Wonder]
Agnosticism

When he drops one doctrine after another in a refined scepticism, when he declines to tie himself to a system, when he says that he has outgrown definitions, when he says that he disbelieves in finality, when, in his own imagination, he sits as God, holding no form of creed but contemplating all, then he is by that very process sinking slowly backwards into the vagueness of the vagrant animals and the unconsciousness of the grass.
Trees have no dogmas.
(H, ch. 20)
Many a magnanimous Moslem and chivalrous Crusader must have been nearer to each other, because they were both dogmatists, than any two homeless agnostics in a pew of Mr. Campbell s chapel.
(WWW, I-3)
It would be much truer to say that agnosticism is the origin of all religions.
That is true; the agnostic is at the beginning not the end of human progress.
(AWD, Something [1910] )
The agnostics have been driven back on agnosticism; and are already recovering from the shock.
(NJ, ch. 8)
It is the business of the agnostic to admit that he knows nothing; and he might the more gracefully admit it touching sciences about which he knows precious little.
(ILN, Mr Mencken and the New Physics, 6-14-30)
We need not deny that modern doubt, like ancient doubt, does ask deep questions; we only deny that, as compared with our own philosophy, it gives any deeper answers.
(WEL, The Well and the Shallows )
[see also: Atheism, Authority, Darwinism, Determinism, Hedonism, Higher Criticism, Liberalism (Theological), Materialism, Modernism, Physics (Modern), Pragmatism, Progress (Idea of), Rebellion, Science, Secularism, Skepticism, Utopias]
Alcohol; Drunkenness

The one genuinely dangerous and immoral way of drinking wine is to drink it as a medicine.
Never drink because you need it, for this is rational drinking, and the way to death and hell.
But drink because you do not need it, for this is irrational drinking, and the ancient health of the world.
(H, ch. 7)
The man who drinks ordinarily makes nothing but an ordinary man of himself.
The man who drinks excessively makes a devil of himself.
(CD, ch. 9)
The real case against drunkenness is not that it calls up the beast, but that it calls up the Devil.
(ILN, Alcohol, Drunkenness, and Drinking, 4-20-07)
America

There is one thing, at any rate, that must strike all Englishmen who have the good fortune to have American friends; that is, that while there is no materialism so crude or so material as American materialism, there is also no idealism so crude or so ideal as American idealism.
America will always affect an Englishman as being soft in the wrong place and hard in the wrong place; coarse exactly where all civilised men are delicate, del