Posting a letter and getting married [sic] are among the few things left that are entirely romantic; for to be entirely romantic, a thing must be irrevocable
Interpretation
The quote suggests that true romance comes from actions that are permanent and unchangeable.
Gilbert K. Chesterton's quote implies that certain actions, such as posting a letter or getting married, embody a deep sense of romance due to their definitive and irreversible nature. These moments signify commitments that cannot be undone, highlighting the beauty in their permanence and the emotional weight they carry, which is essential to the experience of romance.
In practice
This quote is perfect for a wedding toast emphasizing the beauty of commitment.
Tradition does not mean a dead town; it does not mean that the living are dead but that the dead are alive. It means that it still matters what Penn did two hundred years ago or what Franklin did a hundred years ago; I never could feel in New York that it mattered what anybody did an hour ago.
I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite.
The good Bishop of Assisi expressed a sort of horror at the hard life which the Little Brothers lived at the Portiuncula, without comforts, without possessions, eating anything they could get and sleeping anyhow on the ground. St. Francis answered him with that curious and almost stunning shrewdness which the unworldly can sometimes wield like a club of stone. He said, 'If we had any possessions, we should need weapons and laws to defend them.
The ordinary scientific man is strictly a sentimentalist. He is a sentimentalist in this essential sense, that he is soaked and swept away by mere associations.
I suppose every one must have reflected how primeval and how poetical are the things that one carries in one's pocket; the pocket-knife, for instance, the type of all human tools, the infant of the sword. Once I planned to write a book of poems entirely about things in my pockets. But I found it would be too long; and the age of the great epics is past.
Madness does not come by breaking out, but by giving in; by settling down in some dirty, little, self-repeating circle of ideas; by being tamed.
The longing for destiny is nowhere stronger than in our romantic life.
She had heard Papa sing so many songs about the heart; the heart that was breaking - was aching - was dancing -was heavy laden - that leaped for joy - that was heavy in sorrow - that turned over - that stood still. She really believed the heart actually did those things.
As perfume doth remain In the folds where it hath lain, So the thought of you, remaining Deeply folded in my brain, Will not leave me: all things leave me: You remain.
Life with you was lovelyβand when I say lovely, I mean doves and lilies, and velvet, and that soft pink βvβ in the middle and the way your tongue curved up to the long, lingering βl.β Our life together was alliterative, and when I think of all the little things which will die, now that we cannot share them, I feel as if we were dead too.
Mindful time spent with the person we love is the fullest expression of true love and real generosity.
When I first saw you with your smile so tender, my heart was captured, my soul surrendered.
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