-October 1, 1903, Daily News
Quotes by and posts relating to one of the most influential authors of the 20th century, G.K. Chesterton
Wednesday, July 26, 2017
[...] of all poetical publications the most poetical is a daily paper. The real objection to a daily paper is, of course, that it is too poetical. It is congested with poetry. It is a chaos of stars and sunshine, a confusion of the flowers and the sea. It is two hundred splendid books mixed up at once; so that the reader of that bewildering masterpiece loses the thread of all of them. It is impossible at once to keep in tune with the pantomime of a Government inquiry and the tragedy of a suicide at Wandsworth; but surely this is not from any lack of poetry in them [...]
Friday, July 14, 2017
But the influence of children goes further than its first trifling effort of remaking heaven and earth. It forces us actually to remodel our conduct in accordance with this revolutionary theory of the marvellousness of all things. We do (even when we are perfectly simple or ignorant)—we do actually treat talking in children as marvellous, walking in children as marvellous, common intelligence in children as marvellous. The cynical philosopher fancies he has a victory in this matter—that he can laugh when he shows that the words or antics of the child, so much admired by its worshippers, are common enough. The fact is that this is precisely where baby-worship is so profoundly right. Any words and any antics in a lump of clay are wonderful, the child's words and antics are wonderful, and it is only fair to say that the philosopher's words and antics are equally wonderful.
The truth is that it is our attitude towards children that is right, and our attitude towards grown-up people that is wrong. Our attitude towards our equals in age consists in a servile solemnity, overlying a considerable degree of indifference or disdain. Our attitude towards children consists in a condescending indulgence, overlying an unfathomable respect. We bow to grown people, take off our hats to them, refrain from contradicting them flatly, but we do not appreciate them properly. We make puppets of children, lecture them, pull their hair, and reverence, love, and fear them. When we reverence anything in the mature, it is their virtues or their wisdom, and this is an easy matter. But we reverence the faults and follies of children.
The truth is that it is our attitude towards children that is right, and our attitude towards grown-up people that is wrong. Our attitude towards our equals in age consists in a servile solemnity, overlying a considerable degree of indifference or disdain. Our attitude towards children consists in a condescending indulgence, overlying an unfathomable respect. We bow to grown people, take off our hats to them, refrain from contradicting them flatly, but we do not appreciate them properly. We make puppets of children, lecture them, pull their hair, and reverence, love, and fear them. When we reverence anything in the mature, it is their virtues or their wisdom, and this is an easy matter. But we reverence the faults and follies of children.
The Defendant (1901)
Monday, July 10, 2017
[Browning] had the one great requirement of a poet—he was not difficult to please. The life of society was superficial, but it is only very superficial people who object to the superficial. To the man who sees the marvellousness of all things, the surface of life is fully as strange and magical as its interior; clearness and plainness of life is fully as mysterious as its mysteries. The young man in evening dress, pulling on his gloves, is quite as elemental a figure as any anchorite, quite as incomprehensible, and indeed quite as alarming.
-Robert Browning (1903)
Friday, July 7, 2017
Romance, indeed, does not consist by any
means so much in experiencing adventures as in being ready for them. How little
the actual boy cares for incidents in comparison to tools and weapons may be
tested by the fact that the most popular story of adventure is concerned with a
man who lived for years on a desert island with two guns and a sword, which he
never had to use on an enemy.
-Twelve Types (1902)