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About this quote

What does it mean?
Chesterton humorously notes that poets ignore cheese, a common human staple.
In plain terms
Poets write about big things but never about cheese.
What can you take from it?
Simple things often get ignored by art.

Where it applies

  • literary discussion
  • humor
  • daily life

Putting it to work

  • notice small pleasures
  • wonder why art ignores daily life

Questions to consider

  • What simple things are missing from art?

Another view

Many poems do mention food or simple things.

More from Gilbert Keith Chesterton

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  2. The whole difference between construction and creation is exactly this: that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created…

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  3. It is the one great weakness of journalism as a picture of our modern existence, that it must be a picture made up entirely of exceptions. We announce on flari…

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