(29 May 1874 – 14 June 1936) was an English writer. His prolific and diverse output included philosophy, ontology
, poetry, plays, journalism, public lectures and debates, literary and art criticism, biography, Christian apologetics
, and fiction, including fantasy and detective fiction. Chesterton has been called the "prince of paradox". Time
magazine, in a review of a biography of Chesterton, observed of his writing style: "Whenever possible Chesterton made his points with popular sayings, proverbs, allegories—first carefully turning them inside out." For example, Chesterton wrote "Thieves respect property.
Impartiality is a pompous name for indifference, which is an elegant name for ignorance.
Reason is always a kind of brute force; those who appeal to the head rather than the heart, however pallid and polite, are necessarily men of violence. We speak of 'touching' a man's heart, but we can do nothing to his head but hit it.
The center of every man's existence is a dream. Death, disease, insanity, are merely material accidents, like a toothache or a twisted ankle. That these brutal forces always besiege and often capture the citadel does not prove that they are the citadel.
The simplification of anything is always sensational.
He is only a very shallow critic who cannot see an eternal rebel in the heart of the Conservative.
Many clever men like you have trusted to civilization. Many clever Babylonians, many clever Egyptians, many clever men at the end of Rome. Can you tell me, in a world that is flagrant with the failures of civilisation, what there is particularly immortal about yours?
"Bosh," he said, "On what else is the whole world run but immediate impressions? What is more practical? My friend, the philosophy of this world may be founded on facts, but its business is run on spiritual impressions and atmospheres."
Truth must of necessity be stranger than fiction...for fiction is the creation of the human mind, and therefore is congenial to it.