Here is the quote from G. K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy
that we read at the CC Parent Practicum. I know it went by too quickly for many
of you to write it down, so here it is in full. Also, I have included
some other quotes from the same book, as well as some links to follow if you'd
like to become better acquainted with Mr. Chesterton. Most of work is found in
the public domain, so it is free all over the place. All it will cost you is
your time, which will be better spent reading Chesterton than many other
writers. He has a logically imaginative way of thinking that is uncommon among
men. I am always challenged, while at the same time encouraged by reading his
work:
“Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "Do it again"; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.”
“It is one thing to describe an interview with a gorgon or a griffin, a creature who does not exist. It is another thing to discover that the rhinoceros does exist and then take pleasure in the fact that he looks as if he didn't.”
“Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our
ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit
to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be
walking about.”
“Imagination does not breed insanity. Exactly what does breed insanity
is reason. Poets do not go mad; but chess-players do. Mathematicians go
mad, and cashiers; but creative artists very seldom. I am not, as will
be seen, in any sense attacking logic: I only say that this danger does
lie in logic, not in imagination.”
“White is not a mere absence of color; it is a shining and affirmative
thing, as fierce as red, as definite as black. God paints in many
colors; but He never paints so gorgeously, I had almost said so gaudily,
as when He paints in white.
Here is a link to many other quotes from this imminently quotable book:
Follow this link to Amazon to get a Kindle version of Orthodoxy for free. This version also has a great foreward by Matthew Lee Anderson.
During the course of the CC Parent Practicum, I also mentioned two other GKC quotes:
"People often quarrel because they don't know how to argue."
"Anything worth doing is worth doing badly."
Happy reading!
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