Cleverness Kills Wisdom

“It has decided, rightly or wrongly, that this specialism and this universalism shall be divided between the sexes. Cleverness shall be left for men and wisdom for women. For cleverness kills wisdom; that is one of the few sad and certain things.” GK Chesterton, What's Wrong With the World Curiouser and curiouser... Why does Chesterton …

Awake

"MEN are never more awake to the good in the world than when they are furiously awake to the evil in the world. Men never enjoy so much the blazing sun and the rushing wind as when they are out hunting the Devil. On the other hand, there are no people so dreary as philosophical …

On Seeing Meaning, With Chesterton

Thomas More was a better rationalist, which was why there was nothing in his religion that was merely local, or in that sense merely loyal. More's mind was like a diamond also in a power like that of cutting glass; of cutting through things that seemed equally transparent, but were at once less solid and …

ST. THOMAS MORE

"Champion of Liberty" "MOST WOULD UNDERSTAND the phrase that the mind of More was like a diamond that a tyrant threw away into a ditch, because he could not break it. It is but a metaphor; but it does sometimes happen that the metaphor is many-sided, like the diamond. What moved the tyrant to a …

We, Beside the Gods

And then - at last - for a moment - I saw him." "Saw whom?" "The west-wind." "Saw it?" "Not it; him. The god of the wind; West-wind himself." "Were you awake, Psyche?" "Oh, it was no dream. One can't dream things like that, because one's never seen things like that. He was in human …

The Closed Door

"When a door of happiness closes, another opens. Often we look at the closed door, we do not see the one that's been opened." - Helen Keller

Departures are all Alike

I shouldn't be at all disturbed if it could be shown that a diabolical mysticism, or drugs, produced experiences indistinguishable (by introspection) from those of the great christian mystics. Departures are all alike, it is the landfall that crowns a voyage. The saint, by being a saint, proves that his mysticism led him aright; the …

Every Day

Relying on God has to begin all over again every day as if nothing had yet been done. – C.S. Lewis

On Mr. Chesterton’s Destructive Criticism

"WE are in some danger today of underestimating our debt to Mr. Chesterton, and of forgetting the impact which his books made on the minds of young men who were infected by the fallacy of Victorian rationalism. In those distant days many people still cherished the futile hope of reconstructing a positive ethical system on …

To Understand

“We are all very anxious to be understood, and it is very hard not to be. But there is one thing much more necessary.' What is that, grandmother?' To understand other people.' Yes, grandmother. I must be fair - for if I'm not fair to other people, I'm not worth being understood myself. I see.” …