Browse quotations by G. K. Chesterton with named works, context notes, meanings and recurring themes.
“I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.”
Chesterton links gratitude with attentive perception: appreciation becomes deeper when ordinary good things are noticed with a sense of wonder.
Source note: A Short History of England, in Chesterton’s discussion of receptiveness and dependence on goods outside oneself.
“Angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly.”
Chesterton uses levity as a metaphor against swollen self-importance: the ability to take oneself less heavily becomes part of spiritual freedom rather than evidence that serious responsibilities do not matter.
Source note: Orthodoxy, Chapter VII, “The Eternal Revolution,” Project Gutenberg #130. The sentence belongs to Chesterton’s explicitly Christian contrast between levity and pride; he immediately describes pride as a downward heaviness and self-forgetfulness as something one rises toward.