G K Chesterton Orthodoxy Quotes & Sayings

Every man has forgotten who he is. One may understand the cosmos, but never the ego; the self is more distant than any star.
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God; but thou shalt not know thyself.
We are all under the same mental calamity; we have all forgotten our names. We have all forgotten what we really are. All that we call common sense and rationality and practicality and positivism only means that for certain dead levels of our life we forget that we have forgotten. All that we call spirit and art and ecstasy only means that for one awful moment we remember that we forget. — G.K. Chesterton

No one in your life is with you constantly. No one is completely on your side. — Tim Rice

I feel like I have had the most amazing life in my public service. — Hillary Clinton

There is only one thing that can never go past a certain point in its alliance with oppression
and that is orthodoxy. I may, it is true, twist orthodoxy so as partly to justify a tyrant. But I can easily make up a German philosophy to justify him entirely. — G.K. Chesterton

All science is concerned with the relationship of cause and effect. Each scientific discovery increases man's ability to predict the consequences of his actions and thus his ability to control future events. — Laurence J. Peter

Oscar Wilde said that sunsets were not valued because we could not pay for sunsets. But Oscar Wilde was wrong; we can pay for sunsets. We can pay for them by not being Oscar Wilde. — G.K. Chesterton

People have fallen into a foolish habit of speaking of orthodoxy as something heavy, humdrum, and safe. There never was anything so perilous or so exciting as orthodoxy. It was sanity: and to be sane is more dramatic than to be mad. — G.K. Chesterton

Delicate equilibrium of periodical filth between two moons balanced. Moons he said full and yellow as harvest moons her hips thighs. Outside outside of them always but. Yellow. Feet soles with walking like. Then know that some man that all those mysterious and imperious concealed. With all that inside of them shapes an outward suavity waiting for a touch to. Liquid putrefaction like drowned things floating like pale rubber flabbily filled getting the odor of honeysuckle all mixed up. — William Faulkner

So it does not matter (comparatively speaking) how often humanity fails to imitate its ideal; for then all its old failures are fruitful. But it does frightfully matter how often humanity changes its ideal; for then all its old failures are fruitless. — G.K. Chesterton

I did try to found a little heresy of my own; and when I had put the last touches to it, I discovered that it was orthodoxy. — G.K. Chesterton

I perceive that it is far more practical to begin at the beginning and discuss theories. I see that the men who killed each other about the orthodoxy of the Homoousion were far more sensible than the people who are quarrelling about the Education Act. For the Christian dogmatists were trying to establish a reign of holiness, and trying to get defined, first of all, what was really holy. But our modern educationists are trying to bring about a religious liberty without attempting to settle what is religion or what is liberty. If the old priests forced a statement on mankind, at least they previously took some trouble to make it lucid. It has been left for the modern mobs of Anglicans and Nonconformists to persecute for a doctrine without even stating it. — G.K. Chesterton

An historic institution, which never went right, is really quite much of a miracle as an institution that cannot go wrong. — G.K. Chesterton

Let beliefs fade fast and frequently, if you wish institutions to remain the same. The more the life of the mind is unhinged, the more the machinery of matter will be left to itself. — G.K. Chesterton

There are an infinity of angles at which one falls, only one at which one stands. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

A loser doesn't know what he'll do if he loses but talks about what he'll do if he wins and a winner doesn't talk about what he'll do if he wins but knows what he'll do if he loses. — Eric Berne

He who wills to reject nothing, wills the destruction of will; for will is not only the choice of something, but the rejection of almost everything. — G.K. Chesterton

Ethically, she couldn't cause the suffering of any living thing. Logically, bacon cheeseburgers were delicious. — Thomm Quackenbush

There is no "only one" Vietnam experience - there are as many as there are those who went to Vietnam - but this is mine - the combat, the excitement, the discomfort, the fear, the accomplishments, the hubris, the politics, the challenges, and the sex. This is 1968 - MY Vietnam experience. — Joseph E Abodeely

A small circle is quite as infinite as a large circle; but, though it is quite as infinite, it is not so large. — G.K. Chesterton

The word 'heresy' not only means no longer being wrong; it practically means being clear-headed and courageous. The word 'orthodoxy' not only no longer means being right; it practically means being wrong. — G.K. Chesterton

They do not destroy orthodoxy; they only destroy political courage and common sense. — G.K. Chesterton

The power of an attitude is amazing — John Steinbeck

Writing opens the door to imagination. — Joe Evener

The Byzantines hammered away at their hard and orthodox symbols, because they could not be in a mood to believe that men could take a hint. The moderns drag out into lengths and reels of extravagance their new orthodoxy of being unorthodox, because they also cannot give a hint
or take a hint. Yet all perfect and well-poised art is really a hint. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason ... — Gilbert K. Chesterton

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. — G.K. Chesterton

Is it possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening "Do it again" to the moon." from Orthodoxy. — G.K. Chesterton

I depend a lot on my own judgment, for better or worse. — Rebecca Eaton

It's like concentrating on your own breath: once you start thinking about the air rushing in and out of your body, your breath has a way of getting stuck in your throat so that you understand how easy it would be to fall down and die. — Carol Shields

It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never gotten tired of making them — Gilbert K. Chesterton

Collaboration is when magic is made with more than one person. It's when more than one person finds common ground on the same page. That's collaboration. — Michael Urie

It is my conviction that secrets are more costly in the long run than honesty. — Kathryn Harrison