Living Things

“Living things must constantly be broken up and destroyed; it is only the dead things than can be left alone.”

G. K. Chesterton – “The Riddle of the Restoration” Lunacy and Letters

Joy of Spring

“My love is like a red, red rose” does not mean that the poet is praising roses under the allegory of a young lady. “My love is an arbutus” does not mean that the author was a botanist so pleased with a particular arbutus tree that he said he loved it. “Who art the moon and regent of my sky” does not mean that Juliet invented Romeo to account for the roundness of the moon. “Christ is the Sun of Easter” does not mean that the worshiper is praising the sun under the emblem of Christ. Goddess or god can clothe themselves with the spring or summer; but the body is more than raiment. Religion takes almost disdainfully the dress of Nature; and indeed Christianity has done as well with the snows of Christmas as with the snow-drops of spring. And when I look across the sun-struck fields, I know in my inmost bones that my joy is not solely in the spring, for spring alone, being always returning, would be always sad. There is somebody or something walking there, to be crowned with flowers: and my pleasure is in some promise yet possible and in the resurrection of the dead.”

G. K. Chesterton, A Miscellany of Men

Substitutes for Joy

“I sometimes wonder whether all pleasures are not substitutes for joy.”

C. S. Lewis

Deep Love

“I love you. I used to pity your sorrow. But now, were you sorrowless, without fear or any lack, still I would love you.”

J. R. R. Tolkien (1892 – 1973), Spoken by Faramir to Eowyn, The Return of the King

Supreme Strength

“Moderate strength is shown in violence, supreme strength is shown in levity.”
G. K. Chesterton – The Man Who was Thursday, 1908