“Literature is only the contrast between the weird curves of Nature and the straightness of the soul.”
G.K. Chesterton, in header quotation without further attribution in “Giving Cheese Its Due” by Jason West in Gilbert: The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 25 #6 (July/August 2022)
“If my circumstances have made me wholly stupid, how can I be certain even that I am right in altering those circumstances?”
G.K. Chesterton in Daily News December 1, 1906, quoted in Gilbert The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 26 #5 (May-June 2023)
“Thanatos can assume any form it wishes; it can kill eros, the life drive, and then simulate it. Once thanatos does this to you, you are in big trouble; you suppose you are driven by eros but it is thanatos wearing a mask.”
Philip K. Dick VALIS
“If there are ghastly things to be faced the only thing we can do is make it glorious to face them.”
GKC in New Witness May 17, 1918 quoted in Gilbert magazine Vol. 9 #2 (Oct.-Dec. 2005)
“We should always endeavor to wonder at the permanent thing, not at the mere exception. We should be startled by the sun, and not by the eclipse. We should wonder less at the earthquake, and wonder more at the earth.”
G.K. Chesterton in Illustrated London News Oct. 21, 1905, quoted in Gilbert The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 25 #2 (Nov.-Dec. 2021)
“I pronounce it as certain that there was never yet a truly great man that was not at the same time truly virtuous.”
Benjamin Franklin quoted in The Patriot Post Founders’ Quote Daily September 25, 2006 from Federalist.com (and sourced to “Benjamin Franklin (The Busy-body, No. 3, 18 February 1728) Reference: The Works of Benjamin Franklin, Bigelow, ed., vol. 1 (350).”)
“In the name of commonsense let it be remembered that Shakespeare lived before the time when unsuccessful poets thought it poetical to be decadent and unsuccessful soldiers thought it military to be silent. Men like Sidney and Raleigh and Essex could have fought as well as Macbeth and could have ranted as well as Macbeth. Why should Shakespeare shrink from making a great general talk poetry when half the great generals of his time actually wrote great poetry?”
“The Macbeths,” in G.K. Chesterton Brave New Family
“I have very little doubt myself that, somehow or other, an inspiring and compelling creed will return to our country, because religion is really a need, like fires in winter: where there is no vision, the people perish, and perish of cold. The nation that has no gods at all not only dies, but what is more, is bored to death. But if ever a faith is firmly founded again, it will be at least interesting to notice those few things that have bridged the gulf, that stood firm when faith was lost, and were still standing when it was found again. Of these really interesting things one, in all probability, will be the English celebration of Christmas.”
G.K. Chesterton in Illustrated London News, January 9, 1909, quoted in “GKC on Scripture – Conducted by Peter Floriani” “Proverbs Part 2” in Gilbert: The Magazine of the G.K. Chesterton Society Vol. 25 #3 (Jan.-Feb. 2022)