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)
_____________________



Thursday, February 14, 2013

"Art isolates a thing from everything, that it may be unexpected, that it may be supernatural."

For the whole meaning of the strange thing called Art is merely this, that by copying a thing, by making it over again, and above all by making it over again with a slight difference, we can see something of the primary wonder of it, a spasm, as it were, of the enduring astonishment of God. Anyone, for instance, who has ever looked with certain feelings at a child's dolls'-house, knows the thing of which I speak. The very fact that the dolls'-house is small, makes us realise with surprise that houses can be so large. The very fact that it is not real makes us remember, with a sort of shock, that houses are real. We see the thing at second hand; and then only we realise it at first hand. In this the dolls'-house is the symbol and seed of the whole of art. Art, as I have said, has exactly the opposite aim to the aim of science. Science connects a thing with everything, that it may be natural and expected. Art isolates a thing from everything, that it may be unexpected, that it may be supernatural.

 -The Independent Review, Volume 5, February-April 1905