9 Gilbert Keith Chesterton Quotes on Perspective

Gilbert Keith Chesterton quotes on perspective

14. Shall I tell you the secret of the whole world? It is that we have only known the back of the world. We see everything from behind, and it looks brutal. That is not a tree, but the back of a tree. That is not a cloud, but the back of a cloud. Cannot you see that everything is stooping and hiding a face? If we could only get round in front -

58. A beetle may or may not be inferior to a man - the matter awaits demonstration; but if he were inferior by ten thousand fathoms, the fact remains that there is probably a beetle view of things of which a man is entirely ignorant. If he wishes to conceive that point of view, he will scarcely reach it by persistently revelling in the fact that he is not a beetle.

78. There is no such thing on earth as an uninteresting subject; the only thing that can exist is an uninterested person.

110. A man looking at a hippopotamus may sometimes be tempted to regard a hippopotamus as an enormous mistake; but he is also bound to confess that a fortunate inferiority prevents him personally from making such mistakes.

115. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered; an adventure is an inconvenience rightly considered.

137. If you know what a man's doing, get in front of him; but if you want to guess what he's doing keep behind him.

143. The things that happen here do not seem to mean anything; they mean something somewhere else. Somewhere else retribution will come on the real offender. Here it often seems to fall on the wrong person.

157. Now, as it is with the monster that is called a horse, so it is with the monster that is called a man. ... the really detached consideration of the curious career of man will lead back to, and not away from, the ancient faith in the dark designs of God. In other words, it is exactly when we do see how queer the quadruped is that we praise the man who mounts him; and exactly when we do see how queer the biped is that we praise the Providence that made him.

194. A weak mind is like a microscope, which magnifies trifling things but cannot receive great ones.