Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Name: Orthodoxy — I: Introduction in Defence of Everything Else
Author: Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Orthodoxy — I: Introduction in Defence of Everything Else (1909)

Summary

“Orthodoxy — I: Introduction in Defence of Everything Else”, published in 1909, is a work by Gilbert Keith Chesterton. It explores elements such as sophistry, truth and fool.

Quotes from Orthodoxy — I: Introduction in Defence of Everything Else (Gilbert Keith Chesterton)

Gilbert Keith Chesterton, Orthodoxy — I: Introduction in Defence of Everything Else (1909)

“ If a man prefers nothing I can give him nothing. But nearly all people I have ever met in this western society in which I live would agree to the general proposition that we need this life of practical romance; the combination of something that is strange with something that is secure. We need so to view the world as to combine an idea of wonder and an idea of welcome. We need to be happy in this wonderland without once being merely comfortable. It is this achievement of my creed that I shall chiefly pursue in these pages. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Gilbert Keith Chesterton, Orthodoxy — I: Introduction in Defence of Everything Else (1909)

“ Bernard Shaw lived upon paradox, then he ought to be a mere common millionaire; for a man of his mental activity could invent a sophistry every six minutes. It is as easy as lying; because it is lying. The truth is, of course, that Mr. Shaw is cruelly hampered by the fact that he cannot tell any lie unless he thinks it is the truth. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Gilbert Keith Chesterton, Orthodoxy — I: Introduction in Defence of Everything Else (1909)

“ What could be better than to have all the fun of discovering South Africa without the disgusting necessity of landing there? What could be more glorious than to brace one's self up to discover New South Wales and then realize, with a gush of happy tears, that it was really old South Wales. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Gilbert Keith Chesterton, Orthodoxy — I: Introduction in Defence of Everything Else (1909)

“ To show that a faith or a philosophy is true from every standpoint would be too big an undertaking even for a much bigger book than this; it is necessary to follow one path of argument; and this is the path that I here propose to follow. I wish to set forth my faith as particularly answering this double spiritual need, the need for that mixture of the familiar and the unfamiliar which Christendom has rightly named romance. For the very word "romance" has in it the mystery and ancient meaning of Rome. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Gilbert Keith Chesterton, Orthodoxy — I: Introduction in Defence of Everything Else (1909)

“ I do not see how this book can avoid being egotistical; and I do not quite see (to tell the truth) how it can avoid being dull. Dulness will, however, free me from the charge which I most lament; the charge of being flippant. Mere light sophistry is the thing that I happen to despise most of all things, and it is perhaps a wholesome fact that this is the thing of which I am generally accused. I know nothing so contemptible as a mere paradox ”

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Source: Wikisource

Gilbert Keith Chesterton, Orthodoxy — I: Introduction in Defence of Everything Else (1909)

“ The thing I do not propose to prove, the thing I propose to take as common ground between myself and any average reader, is this desirability of an active and imaginative life, picturesque and full of a poetical curiosity, a life such as western man at any rate always seems to have desired. If a man says that extinction is better than existence or blank existence better than variety and adventure, then he is not one of the ordinary people to whom I am talking. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Gilbert Keith Chesterton, Orthodoxy — I: Introduction in Defence of Everything Else (1909)

“ How can we contrive to be at once astonished at the world and yet at home in it? How can this queer cosmic town, with its many-legged citizens, with its monstrous and ancient lamps, how can this world give us at once the fascination of a strange town and the comfort and honour of being our own town? ”

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Source: Wikisource

Gilbert Keith Chesterton, Orthodoxy — I: Introduction in Defence of Everything Else (1909)

“ 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. One searches for truth, but it may be that one pursues instinctively the more extraordinary truths. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Gilbert Keith Chesterton, Orthodoxy — I: Introduction in Defence of Everything Else (1909)

“ I have been forced by mere space to confine myself to what I have got from this creed; I do not touch the matter much disputed among modern Christians, of where we ourselves got it. This is not an ecclesiastical treatise but a sort of slovenly autobiography. But if any one wants my opinions about the actual nature of the authority, Mr. G. S. Street has only to throw me another challenge, and I will write him another book. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Gilbert Keith Chesterton, Orthodoxy — I: Introduction in Defence of Everything Else (1909)

“ If any one is entertained by learning how the flowers of the field or the phrases in an omnibus, the accidents of politics or the pains of youth came together in a certain order to produce a certain conviction of Christian orthodoxy, he may possibly read this book. But there is in everything a reasonable division of labour. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Gilbert Keith Chesterton, Orthodoxy — I: Introduction in Defence of Everything Else (1909)

“ The only possible excuse for this book is that it is an answer to a challenge. ”

Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Summary

Quotes from Orthodoxy — I: Introduction in Defence of Everything Else (Gilbert Keith Chesterton)

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