Greek Deism

We cannot say anything but 'God' in a sentence like that of Socrates bidding farewell to his judges: 'I go to die and you remain to live; and God alone knows which of us goes the better way.' [Plato, Dialogues, Apology.] We can use no other word even for the best moments of Marcus Aurelius: 'Can they say dear city of Cecrops, and canst thou not say dear city of God?' [The Meditations Bk. 4.] We can use no other word in that mighty line in which Virgil spoke to all who suffer with the veritable cry of a Christian before Christ: 'O you that have borne things more terrible, to this also God shall give an end.' [Aeneid Bk. 1 line 198.]

—G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man.

Removal

The sky ought to be nearer to us than it is; perhaps it was once nearer than it is; it is not a thing merely alien and abysmal but in some fashion it is sundered from us and saying farewell.


—G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man.

Life

There is something that is nearer to man than livelihood, and that is life. For when he remembers exactly what work produces his wages and exactly what wages produce his meals, he reflects ten times that it is a fine day or it is a queer world, or wonders whether life is worth living, or wonders whether marriage is a failure, or is pleased and puzzled with his own children, or remembers his own youth, or in any such fashion vaguely reviews the mysterious lot of man. This is true of the majority even of the wage-slaves of our morbid modern industrialism.

—G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man.

Forgotten

Those who have fallen may remember the fall, even when they forget the height. Some such tantalising blank or break in memory is at the back of all pagan sentiment. There is such a thing as the momentary power to remember that we forget. And the most ignorant of humanity know by the very look of earth that they have forgotten heaven.

—G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man.

Brahma

Gods as well as men are only the dreams of Brahma; and will perish when Brahma wakes.

—Quoted in G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man.