Quote

The only words that ever satisfied me as describing nature are the terms used in fairy books, charm, spell, enchantment they express the arbitrariness of the fact and its mystery.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Gilbert K. Chesterton
Age: 62 †
Born: 1874
Born: May 29
Died: 1936
Died: June 14
Autobiographer
Biographer
Crime Writer
Essayist
Historian
Illustrator
Journalist
Literary Historian
Novelist
Opinion Journalist
Philosopher
Beaconsfield
Buckinghamshire
Gilbert Keith Chesterton
Gilbert K. Chesterton
Gilbert Chesterton
G.K. Chesterton
G. K. C.
Facts
Express
Arbitrariness
Nature
Terms
Enchantment
Used
Mystery
Spell
Ever
Environment
Describing
Book
Books
Spells
Term
Charm
Fact
Fairy
Words
Satisfied

More quotes by Gilbert K. Chesterton

Image
He walked by instinct along one white road, on which early birds hopped and sang, and found himself outside a fenced garden. There he saw the sister of Gregory, the girl with the gold-red hair, cutting lilac before breakfast, with the great unconscious gravity of a girl.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
Image
Thinking in isolation and with pride ends in being an idiot.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
Image
A good joke is the closest thing we have to divine revelation.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
Image
We are justified in enforcing good morals, for they belong to all mankind but we are not justified in enforcing good manners, for good manners always mean our own manners.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
Image
Lord! what a strange world in which a man cannot remain unique even by taking the trouble to go mad!
Gilbert K. Chesterton
Image
To love means loving the unlovable. To forgive means pardoning the unpardonable. Faith means believing the unbelievable. Hope means hoping when everything seems hopeless.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
Image
Poets do not go mad, but chess players do.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
Image
Comradeship is obvious and universal and open but it is only one kind of affection it has characteristics that would destroy any other kind. Anyone who has known true comradeship in a club or in a regiment, knows that it is impersonal.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
Image
Americans are a very backward people, with all the real virtues of a backward people the patriarchal simplicity and human dignity of a democracy, and a respect for labor uncorrupted by cynicism.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
Image
Destiny is but a phrase of the weak human heart - the dark apology for every error. The strong and virtuous admit no destiny. On earth conscience guides in heaven God watches. And destiny is but the phantom we invoke to silence the one and dethrone the other.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
Image
Savages and modern artists are alike strangely driven to create something uglier than themselves. but the artists find it harder.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
Image
Realism is simply Romanticism that has lost its reason...that is its reason for existing.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
Image
There are many ways to fall down, but there's only one way to stand up straight.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
Image
The true object of all human life is play. Earth is a task garden heaven is a playground.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
Image
The one stream of poetry which is continually flowing is slang.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
Image
The test of happiness is gratitude.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
Image
The function of the imagination is not to make strange things settled, so much as to make settled things strange.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
Image
There are a great many good people, and a great many sane people here this afternoon. Unfortunately, by a kind of coincidence, all the good people are mad, and all the sane people are wicked.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
Image
We cannot fling ourselves into the blank future we can only call up images from the past. This being so, the important principle follows, that how many images we have largely depends on how much past we have.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
Image
Man is always something worse or something better than an animal and a mere argument from animal perfection never touches him at all. Thus, in sex no animal is either chivalrous or obscene. And thus no animal invented anything so bad as drunkeness - or so good as drink.
Gilbert K. Chesterton