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)
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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.
-November 18, 1922, Illustrated London News

Tuesday, October 11, 2022

In the most modern politics, unfortunately, it may truly be said that those who make history never know history. You can see that in the sort of history they make.
-The End of the Armistice 
(collection of essays published posthumously in 1940)

 

Tuesday, October 4, 2022

Perhaps a truly great thing always tries to grow small; and there is hidden here a mystery of microscopic ambition. For though the Magnificat magnifies the Lord, it is only just after the Lord has minimized Himself.
-The Resurrection of Rome (1930)

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:
"...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" :-) 

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 Superstition of the Sceptic (1925)