G.K. Chesterton Quote
Most Eugenists are Euphemists. I mean merely that short words startle them, while long words soothe them. And they are utterly incapable of translating the one into the other, however obviously they mean the same thing. Say to them The persuasive and even coercive powers of the citizen should enable him to make sure that the burden of longevity in the previous generation does not become disproportionate and intolerable, especially to the females; say this to them and they will sway slightly to and fro like babies sent to sleep in cradles. Say to them Murder your mother, and they sit up quite suddenly. Yet the two sentences, in cold logic, are exactly the same. Say to them It is not improbable that a period may arrive when the narrow if once useful distinction between the anthropoid homo and the otheranimals, which has been modified on so many moral points, may be modified also even in regard to the important question of the extension of human diet; say this to them, and beauty born of murmuring sound will pass into their face. But say to them, in a simple, manly, hearty way Let's eat a man! and their surprise is quite surprising. Yet the sentences say just the same thing.
Most Eugenists are Euphemists. I mean merely that short words startle them, while long words soothe them. And they are utterly incapable of translating the one into the other, however obviously they mean the same thing. Say to them The persuasive and even coercive powers of the citizen should enable him to make sure that the burden of longevity in the previous generation does not become disproportionate and intolerable, especially to the females; say this to them and they will sway slightly to and fro like babies sent to sleep in cradles. Say to them Murder your mother, and they sit up quite suddenly. Yet the two sentences, in cold logic, are exactly the same. Say to them It is not improbable that a period may arrive when the narrow if once useful distinction between the anthropoid homo and the otheranimals, which has been modified on so many moral points, may be modified also even in regard to the important question of the extension of human diet; say this to them, and beauty born of murmuring sound will pass into their face. But say to them, in a simple, manly, hearty way Let's eat a man! and their surprise is quite surprising. Yet the sentences say just the same thing.
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About G.K. Chesterton
Chesterton created the fictional priest-detective Father Brown, and wrote on apologetics, such as his works Orthodoxy and The Everlasting Man. Chesterton routinely referred to himself as an orthodox Christian, and came to identify this position more and more with Catholicism, eventually converting from high church Anglicanism. Biographers have identified him as a successor to such Victorian authors as Matthew Arnold, Thomas Carlyle, John Henry Newman and John Ruskin.
He has been referred to as the "prince of paradox". Of his writing style, Time observed: "Whenever possible, Chesterton made his points with popular sayings, proverbs, allegories—first carefully turning them inside out." His writings were an influence on Jorge Luis Borges, who compared his work with that of Edgar Allan Poe.