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)
_____________________



Tuesday, November 22, 2016

JFK, C.S. Lewis, and Aldoux Huxley

Today is the 53rd anniversary of the deaths of President Kennedy, C.S. Lewis, and Aldous Huxley.

It just occurred to me that there is a Chesterton connection with all three.

I've heard that Kennedy quoted Chesterton before, and certainly at least on one occasion he did when he paraphrased a passage from GKC's book The Thing, in this way: "Don’t ever take a fence down until you know the reason why it was put up." You can see the passage JFK was paraphrasing here.

As for C.S. Lewis, the connection there of course is well known. Just to give a sample (from Lewis's spiritual autobiography Surprised By Joy) of GKC's influence in his conversion to Christianity, there are some passages collected here.

As for Aldous Huxley, I'm not that familiar with his works, and don't know if he had ever mentioned GKC, but one interesting fact I did discover mentioned before (for instance, in Joseph Pearce's Literary Converts, p. 189) is that Huxley was one of those who were present at Chesterton's funeral.

OK, not much of a post, but something I found interesting. :-)

No comments: