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)
_____________________



Saturday, July 4, 2015

Another point very characteristic of the atmosphere to which [G.F.] Watts belonged is the quality of his moral indignation [...] He was really angry with the evils of the modern world. This still anger in Watts is closely connected with his simplicity, with his cheerfulness- nay, even with his optimism. Laughter has little or nothing to do with cheerfulness; some of the most cheerful people were the most unlaughing- Gladstone, for instance, and Watts. But it is, properly speaking, only the cheerful man, the optimist, who can be angry at all. It is the fashion nowadays for minor poets and minor philosophers to parade their enmity to the gods, to declare that their pessimism is a part of the immortal anger of Prometheus, the everlasting fury of protest against the baseness of the stars. But as a matter of fact they are not angry at all, as anyone knows who has heard their tired voices or seen them in a restaurant. The pessimist cannot be angry; for he has made up his mind to evil as the very stuff and colour of existence. It is only the optimist that can be really angry with the Serpent in Eden, for it is only he who is conscious of Eden. He alone can be furious, for he alone can be surprised.
-July 9, 1904, The Speaker

No comments: