By Dale Ahlquist Orthodoxy is the trunk of the tree from which all the other branches of Chesterton grow. It is a masterpiece of rhetoric, it has never been out of print since it was first published in 1908, and it is simply one of the best books written in the 20th century. But don t compound your shame by thinking you can get away with reading it only once. Or only twice. The first problem is that every sentence in the book makes you stop and think, which makes you lose the thread of the main argument.
Every act is an act of self sacrifice.
Think about that. Or, Death is more tragic than death by starvation. Or, The mere pursuit of health always leads to something unhealthy. Or, Progress should mean that we are always changing the world to suit the vision. Besides the fact that almost every sentence in the book is a show-stopper, the next problem is that the next sentence, or even the next word is never what you expect which makes you lose the thread of the main argument.