Gilbert Keith Chesterton
“Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children
already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be
killed.”
“Without education,
we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously.”
“There is the great lesson of 'Beauty and the Beast,' that a
thing must be loved before it is lovable.”
“The traveler sees
what he sees. The tourist sees what he has come to see.”
“The Bible tells us
to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because generally
they are the same people.”
“There are two ways
to get enough. One is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to
desire less.”
“I would maintain
that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness
doubled by wonder.”
“The Christian ideal
has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left
untried.”
“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.”
“To love means loving the unlovable. To forgive means
pardoning the unpardonable. Faith means believing the unbelievable. Hope means
hoping when everything seems hopeless.”
“If there were no
God, there would be no atheists.”
“It is absurd for the Evolutionist to complain that it is
unthinkable for an admittedly unthinkable God to make everything out of
nothing, and then pretend that it is more thinkable that nothing should turn
itself into everything.”