"I consider it as being without possible comparison the best book ever written on St. Thomas. Nothing short of genius can account for such an achievement. Everybody will no doubt admit that it is a ‘clever’ book, but the few readers who have spent twenty or thirty years in studying St. Thomas...cannot fail to perceive that the so-called ‘wit’ of Chesterton has put their scholarship to shame. He has guessed all that which we had tried to demonstrate, and he has said all that which they were more or less clumsily attempting to express in academic formulas. Chesterton was one of the deepest thinkers who ever existed; he was deep because he was right; and he could not help being right; but he could not either help being modest and charitable, so he left it to those who could understand him to know that he was right, and deep; to the others, he apologized for being right, and he made up for being deep by being witty. That is all they can see of him."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Étienne Gilson, writing about Chesterton's book on St. Thomas Aquinas.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/G._K._Chesterton
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
G. K. Chesterton
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (29 May 1874 – 14 June 1936) was a British writer whose prolific and diverse output included works of philosophy, ontology, poetry, play writing, journalism, public lecturing and debating, literary and art criticism, biography, Christian apologetics (particularly for Catholicism), and fiction, including fantasy and detective fiction. He has been called the "prince of paradox".
261 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by G. K. Chesterton →
Related Quotes
"When we reverence anything in the mature, it is their virtues or their wisdom, and this is an easy matter. But we rev…"
"Skrattar bäst som skrattar sist."
"Landets seder, landets heder."
"A hedge between keeps friends green."
"It is always the secure who are humble."
"[Dickens] was the character whom anybody can hurt and nobody can kill."
"Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions."
"Impartiality is a pompous name for indifference, which is an elegant name for ignorance."
"A puritan is a person who pours righteous indignation into the wrong things."
"There is one creed: 'neath no world-terror's wing Apples forget to grow on apple-trees."