Source identified
Read & copy the quotation
“Angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly.”
- Source
- Orthodoxy
- Date
- 1908
Meaning of “Angels can fly because they can take themselves…”
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.
Where does it come from?
Orthodoxy, Chapter VII, “The Eternal Revolution,” Project Gutenberg #130. “Angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly” appears inside Chesterton’s explicitly Christian paradox contrasting levity, pride, humility and self-forgetfulness. It remains apologetic and metaphorical religious prose rather than a literal scientific claim about angels, gravity or psychology.
