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G.K. Chesterton on fatherhood, character, and how to live

6 sourced quotes from G.K. Chesterton, each with the original work, the year, and links to a primary or scholarly source you can check yourself. Selected for what they say to a man raising children.

“The strong man is not the man who can do anything, but the man who can do the strongest thing.”
Heretics (on greatness and strength), 1905
“A great man is not a man so strong that he feels less than other men; he is a man so strong that he feels more.”
Heretics, chapter on Bernard Shaw and greatness, 1905
“The family is romantic because it is arbitrary. It is romantic because it is there.”
Heretics, chapter XIV ("On Certain Modern Writers and the Institution of the Family"), 1905
“The test of all happiness is gratitude.”
Orthodoxy, Chapter IV, 1908
“I do believe in the family... I would mend the family as I would mend a chair; I would not mend it as I would mend the fashions of a season.”
What's Wrong with the World, Part Five, Chapter II, 1910
“That is the one eternal education: to be sure enough that something is true that you dare to tell it to a child.”
What's Wrong with the World, Part Four, Chapter VI, 1910

The right words for exactly where you are right now.

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Works quoted here: Heretics (on greatness and strength), Heretics, chapter on Bernard Shaw and greatness, Heretics, chapter XIV ("On Certain Modern Writers and the Institution of the Family"), Orthodoxy, Chapter IV, What's Wrong with the World, Part Five, Chapter II, What's Wrong with the World, Part Four, Chapter VI.