-November 18, 1922, Illustrated London News
Laughter and Humility (GK-CHESTERTON.ORG)
Quotes by and posts relating to one of the most influential authors of the 20th century, G.K. Chesterton
A blog dedicated to providing quotes by and posts relating to one of the most influential (and quotable!) authors of the twentieth century, G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936). If you do not know much about GKC, I suggest visiting the webpage of the American Chesterton Society as well as this wonderful Chesterton Facebook Page by a fellow Chestertonian
I also have created a list detailing examples of the influence of Chesterton if you are interested, that I work on from time to time.
(Moreover, for a list of short GKC quotes, I have created one here, citing the sources)
"...Stevenson had found that the secret of life lies in laughter and humility."
-Heretics (1905)
_____________________
I also have created a list detailing examples of the influence of Chesterton if you are interested, that I work on from time to time.
(Moreover, for a list of short GKC quotes, I have created one here, citing the sources)
"...Stevenson had found that the secret of life lies in laughter and humility."
-Heretics (1905)
_____________________
Friday, November 25, 2022
It is a curious irony that [...] a modern man thinks that people in the Middle Ages believed anything they were told. For in truth he only thinks it because he himself believes anything he is told about the Middle Ages. It is modern credulity that has invented mediaeval credulity.
Tuesday, October 11, 2022
Tuesday, October 4, 2022
Thursday, September 1, 2022
GKC in "The Sandman" Netflix series (sort of...)
GKC (sort of) in "The Sandman" Netflix series, and about a minute into the clip quoting from GKC's book Orthodoxy:
Obviously, the character of Gilbert/Fiddler's Green is not literally GKC, but he was modeled on GKC (Neil Gaiman being an admirer of Chesterton).
"...the miracle of humanity itself should be always more vivid to us than any marvels of power..."
Obviously, the character of Gilbert/Fiddler's Green is not literally GKC, but he was modeled on GKC (Neil Gaiman being an admirer of Chesterton).
Tuesday, June 21, 2022
Terry Deary on GKC
Terry Deary, describing the books that changed his life, the first on the list being GKC's The Napoelon of Notting Hill
My school texts like the Thomas Hardy we were forced to read were so dull. When I came across this Chesterton book at the age of around 17 then I realised books could be exciting and create colourful new worlds. I understood that books don’t have to be serious and filled with miserable heroes like Tess of the D’Urbervilles or the Mayor of Casterbridge. They can lead to a meeting with fantastical people. Chesterton made me a writer.
https://www.readersdigest.co.uk/culture/books/meet-the-author/terry-deary-books-that-changed-my-life
Friday, April 22, 2022
Roma Downey quoting GKC
Well, OK, to speak more strictly, she actually misattributed a quote to GKC, it would appear. But still....
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=10156164832444273
J.K. Rowling also once misattributed a quote to GKC on Twitter (that someone had first misattributed to her), and ironically enough had the hashtag "#CorrectAttributionDay" :-)
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=10156164832444273
J.K. Rowling also once misattributed a quote to GKC on Twitter (that someone had first misattributed to her), and ironically enough had the hashtag "#CorrectAttributionDay" :-)
Tuesday, February 22, 2022
Saturday, January 22, 2022
I have reflected; and I think I see the place of the amateur.
The obscure things, the details and disputed points, the great scholar can always see and note better than we can. It is the obvious things that he cannot see. I do not say this in mere depreciation; I think it is really inseparable from that concentrated research to which the world owes so much. It is the truth in the traditional picture of the absent-minded professor, who remains gazing at a fossil or a Roman coin and fails to observe external objects, such as a house on fire, a revolution, an escaped elephant putting its head through the skylight, and similar things....it is precisely because I am so much less learned than he that it is my privilege to lead him through common ways, pointing out elephants and other enormous objects.
The obscure things, the details and disputed points, the great scholar can always see and note better than we can. It is the obvious things that he cannot see. I do not say this in mere depreciation; I think it is really inseparable from that concentrated research to which the world owes so much. It is the truth in the traditional picture of the absent-minded professor, who remains gazing at a fossil or a Roman coin and fails to observe external objects, such as a house on fire, a revolution, an escaped elephant putting its head through the skylight, and similar things....it is precisely because I am so much less learned than he that it is my privilege to lead him through common ways, pointing out elephants and other enormous objects.
-The Superstition of the Sceptic (1925)
Friday, December 31, 2021
Sunday, December 19, 2021
[To] accept the conclusions of science, it is necessary that science should conclude. And science never does conclude. It is the whole claim and boast of science that she never does conclude. To conclude means to shut up; and the very last thing the man of science is likely to do is to shut up [...] it is the whole point of science never to be in this sense final or irrevocable. Of course, this does not mean that we shall not work more wisely if we work in the light of the suggestions of science, or take note of the general tendencies of science. It only means that people who use these words ten thousand times a year have not taken note of what they are saying [...] If science had concluded, it would mean almost literally that science had shut up shop.
-G.K.'s Weekly, March 21, 1925
Friday, December 10, 2021
"The Christmas Carol" is a kind of philanthropic dream, an enjoyable nightmare, in which the scenes shift bewilderingly and seem as miscellaneous as the pictures in a scrap-book, but in which there is one constant state of the soul, a state of rowdy benediction and a hunger for human faces. The beginning is about a winter day and a miser; yet the beginning is in no way bleak. The author starts with a kind of happy howl; he bangs on our door like a drunken carol singer; his style is festive and popular; he compares the snow and hail to philanthropists who "come down handsomely;" he compares the fog to unlimited beer. Scrooge is not really inhuman at the beginning any more than he is at the end. There is a heartiness in his inhospitable sentiments that is akin to humour and therefore to humanity; he is only a crusty old bachelor, and had (I strongly suspect) given away turkeys secretly all his life. The beauty and the real blessing of the story do not lie in the mechanical plot of it, the repentance of Scrooge, probable or improbable; they lie in the great furnace of real happiness that glows through Scrooge and everything around him; that great furnace, the heart of Dickens. Whether the Christmas visions would or would not convert Scrooge, they convert us. Whether or no the visions were evoked by real Spirits of the Past, Present, and Future, they were evoked by that truly exalted order of angels who are correctly called High Spirits. They are impelled and sustained by a quality which our contemporary artists ignore or almost deny, but which in a life decently lived is as normal and attainable as sleep, positive, passionate, conscious joy. The story sings from end to end like a happy man going home; and, like a happy and good man, when it cannot sing it yells. It is lyric and exclamatory, from the first exclamatory words of it. It is strictly a Christmas carol.
-Charles Dickens (1906)
Saturday, November 13, 2021
An interesting find I came across today:
The reason it interests me is because one of the six short films was devoted to writings by G.K. Chesterton:
It even has an IMDB page:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11471996/
Now if only it wasn't lost....
An Evening with Orson Welles is a series of six short films created in 1970 by Orson Welles, for the exclusive use of Sears, Roebuck & Co. Welles produced the recitations of popular stories for Sears's Avco Cartrivision machines, a pioneering home video system.[1]: 166 Five of the films are regarded as lost; footage from one, The Golden Honeymoon, is known to exist.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Evening_with_Orson_Welles
The reason it interests me is because one of the six short films was devoted to writings by G.K. Chesterton:
It even has an IMDB page:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11471996/
Now if only it wasn't lost....
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)