Book Description
Here's a delightful collection of G. K. Chesterton quotes from 1900 to 1911, one for each day of the year--all selected by Chesterton himself. Every word of his 1912 classic is in this newly typeset edition. There are also newly created notes shedding light on events from his day that have been dimmed by the passage of time. In addition, there is a bibliography of sources and a detailed 17-page index to guide you to the quotes you need. Finally, there are several humorous sketches by Chesterton. This book was previously published in the U.K. in 1911 as A Chesterton Calendar and in the U.S. in 1912 as The Wit and Wisdom of G. K. Chesterton. It includes Chapter 13, "The Movable Feasts," which was left out of the U.S. edition.

About the Author
For any author, much less a 'rolicking' journalist often caught up in the passing controversies of his day, the writings of G. K. Chesterton have shown remarkable staying power. During his life, this talented British writer was the private friend and public foe of writers such as George Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells. Two-thirds of a century after his death, the ideas of Shaw and Wells seem curiously quaint and dated, while Chesterton's writings remain fresh as the day they were written. That's why many of Wells later and more political writings are out of print while more and more of what Chesterton wrote is finding its way back onto the shelves of bookstores. The reason simple. Chesterton is one of the most quotable writers of the twentieth-century. He has an incredible knack for capturing in a few concise and memorable words what other authors labor and groan to say over many pages. Lengthy books have been written to explain the essence of Fascism and its close kin Nazism. Few have come as close as Chesterton did when he remarked that, "The intellectual criticism of Fascism is really this: that it appeals to an appetite for authority, without very clearly giving the authority for the appetite." That is Hitler's "Fuhrer Principle" in a nutshell, and why so many followed the German dictator into madness.

Excerpted from Chesterton Day by Day: The Wit and Wisdom of G. K. Chesterton by G. K. Chesterton, Michael W. Perry. Copyright © 2002. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Here are some samples from the book: The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried. (January 13) Darwinism can be used to back up two mad moralities, but it cannot be used to back up a single sane one. The kinship and competition of all living creatures can be used as a reason for being insanely cruel or insanely sentimental; but not for a healthy love of animals. (January 22) Modesty has moved from the organ of ambition. Modesty has settled upon the organ of conviction where it was never meant to be. A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth: this has been exactly reversed. . . The old humility was a spur that prevented a man from stopping: not a nail in his boot that prevented him from going on. For the old humility made a man doubtful about his efforts, which might make him work harder. But the new humility makes a man doubtful about his aims, which will make him stop working altogether. (April 2) It is not by any means self-evident upon the face of it that an institution like the liberty of speech is right or just. It is not natural or obvious to let a man utter follies and abominations which you believe to be bad for mankind any more than it is natural or obvious to let a man dig up a part of the public road, or infect half a town with typhoid fever. The theory of free speech, that truth is so much larger and stranger and more many-sided than we know of, that it is very much better at all costs to hear every one's account of it, is a theory which has been justified upon the whole by experiment, but which remains a very daring and even a very surprising theory. It is really one of the great discoveries of the modern time; but once admitted, it is a principle that does not merely affect politics, but philosophy, ethics, and finally, poetry. (May 9) It was Huxley and Herbert Spencer and Bradlaugh who brought me back to orthodox theology. They sowed in my mind my first wild doubts of doubt. Our grandmothers were quite right when they said that Tom Paine and the Freethinkers unsettled the mind. They do. They unsettled mine horribly. The rationalists made me question whether reason was of any use whatever; and when I had finished Herbert Spencer I had got as far as doubting (for the first time) whether evolution had occurred at all. As I laid down the last of Colonel Ingersoll's atheistic lectures, the dreadful thought broke into my mind, 'Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.' (December 21)

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Chesterton Day by Day

Here's G. K. Chesterton's 1912 classic collection of quotes from his writings up to that time, one for each day of the year. In this newly typeset edition, there are notes shedding light on events dimmed by the passage of time, a bibliography of the texts quoted and a detailed 17-page index. (This book was also published as A Chesterton Calendar and The Wit and Wisdom of G. K. Chesterton.)

Here are samples from the book:

The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.--January 13

Darwinism can be used to back up two mad moralities, but it cannot be used to back up a single sane one. The kinship and competition of all living creatures can be used as a reason for being insanely cruel or insanely sentimental; but not for a healthy love of animals. --January 22

Modesty has moved from the organ of ambition. Modesty has settled upon the organ of conviction￯﾿ﾽwhere it was never meant to be. A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth: this has been exactly reversed. . . The old humility was a spur that prevented a man from stopping: not a nail in his boot that prevented him from going on. For the old humility made a man doubtful about his efforts, which might make him work harder. But the new humility makes a man doubtful about his aims, which will make him stop working altogether. --April 2

It is not by any means self-evident upon the face of it that an institution like the liberty of speech is right or just. It is not natural or obvious to let a man utter follies and abominations which you believe to be bad for mankind any more than it is natural or obvious to let a man dig up a part of the public road, or infect half a town with typhoid fever. The theory of free speech, that truth is so much larger and stranger and more many-sided than we know of, that it is very much better at all costs to hear every one￯﾿ﾽs account of it, is a theory which has been justified upon the whole by experiment, but which remains a very daring and even a very surprising theory. It is really one of the great discoveries of the modern time; but once admitted, it is a principle that does not merely affect politics, but philosophy, ethics, and finally, poetry. --May 9