Again with you, dear Chestertonian friends, for these corners of the blogosphere, and once again with another installment of annotated quotations.
This time I picked one of the great "rival" dialectical Chesterton . I mean the author of some of the most famous and witty British science fiction novels of the last century: Herbert George Wells (1866-1946), creator of works like The Time Machine , Wars Worlds, The Invisible Man or The Island of Dr. Moreau , among many others.
Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc were determined opponents of some of the ideas of Wells, who belonged to the Fabian Society, that is, the germ of the Socialist Labour Party, or England. They objected in particular to the political ideas of Wells and its concept of the history of humanity, expressed in the work The Outline of History: Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind (1920), to which he replied with his Chesterton The Outline of Sanity (1927) where he outlined his theories about Distributism.
But all is not what I wanted to speak. This has been a slight introduction to Wells and his relationship with Belloc and Chesterton that despite the difference of ideas, was always cordial and friendly. I wanted to bring you some of the most famous phrases of Wells for comment. Here they are:
1 .- Our true nationality is mankind . thinking is very successful and certainly would think that even Chesterton agreed with his compatriot. Today we live in times of exacerbated nationalism (indeed, it seems he went out the court's ruling on the ill-fated Constitutional Statute of Catalonia), think that our nationality is just one of humanity is encouraging.
2.-Human history is becoming more and more a race between education and catastrophe. We can see here some pessimism from Wells, but not without reason: human history, especially twentieth century has been a succession of disasters with some periods peace and enlightenment. This struggle between enlightenment and barbarism may be repeated until the end of the world and is innate to the human species. Do not know how to live without fighting ...
3 .- Success: that thing vulgar, distasteful and irritating that so many envy. All we want to succeed in life, be respected by our peers, to be loved, that we listen. And many, no doubt, want to succeed. Today more than ever, we live in society of the image, it appears that without success you're a nobody. For Wells the success (and he enjoyed by far) was a bit distasteful. In contrast, nowadays many people yearn to have that success in life.
4.-The youth lives on hope, old age, of memory. So it seems. While we're young everything seems hopeful, cheerful, vital. We are full of strength and optimism and we are able to achieve what we set out. Then comes old age and we settled the body and spirit. We are left with memories of what has been achieved and what could be obtained.
5 .- Love is the greatest thing of all, far more than the same fame. I think everyone will agree that there is nothing bigger or more powerful, or more sublime and necessary for man to love. Without love we are nothing. You can be the most famous man and acclaimed the world that if you have not love, has nothing and lacks everything.
Nothing more for now. I hope These phrases you like them. Take care much and God bless.
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