Gilbert Keith Chesterton

“ It would be much truer to say that agnosticism is the origin of all religions. That is true; the agnostic is at the beginning not the end of human progress. But those who speak of superstitions born of ignorance generally mean that myths and mystical assertions have arisen from mere accidental or animal incapacity to realise all the circumstances of the case. The old Victorian scientific theory was that men invented fairy tales because they had not yet grasped facts. They thought the moon was a woman because they had not the sense enough to see it was a moon. ”

“ I cannot imagine how the strange notion arose that ignorance is the origin of superstitions. It is true indeed, if we mean ignorance in the same sense that Plato and Bacon were ignorant; the common ignorance of all men about the meaning of their monstrous destiny. But if this be intended, the phrase that ignorance is the origin of all superstitions is a coarse and misleading way of stating the case. ”

“ I do not mind painting myself; in fact, I never can paint anything else without doing so. If I colour so much as a cardboard figure for a toy theatre, I emerge painted like the leaves of autumn, painted like the sky of morning, as it says in Hiawatha. ”

“ I am found worshipping the hairy and goggle-eyed images from the Sandwich Islands; idols to which I really feel a man might bow down. For the beautiful Gods of Greece are cruel; but one always feels that an ugly god might be kind. ”

“ They thought the sea was a god because no kind scientist had ever passed by and pointed out that it was really the sea. They worshipped a stone as a fetish because their lack of geological knowledge prevented them from noting that it was a stone. ”

“ All that they say about their totems, their taboos, their dances, and services to the dead must be understood with a certain poetic sympathy, as meant to be weird, glorious, shocking, or even impossible. ”

“ Everything I hear about these savages attracts me to them more and more. It is vain to tell me that under such a regime the man will be lazy and fond of pleasure while the woman is hard-working and practical ”

“ It is customary for cultivated people from century to century to set up some artistic fashion and pretend to be more old-world or natural than they are. Thus the French noblesse played at being old Greek shepherds and shepherdesses ”