It is the root of all religion that a man knows that he is nothing in order to thank God that he is something.
Interpretation
Acknowledging one's humility is essential for recognizing the greatness of a higher power.
This quote by Gilbert K. Chesterton suggests that the foundation of all religious belief centers around the understanding of human insignificance in the grand scheme of existence. By recognizing that individuals are 'nothing' in comparison to the divine or universe, it opens the door to gratitude and appreciation for life, and the belief that one is a part of something greater, thus inspiring a deeper sense of spirituality and connectedness.
In practice
In a speech about personal growth and spirituality, one might say, 'As Chesterton reminds us, it's essential to recognize our humility before we can truly appreciate the blessings in our lives.'
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.
On the meeting point of two worlds, the ornament of Turkish homeland, the treasure of Turkish history, the city cherished by the Turkish nation, Δ°stanbul, has its place in the hearts of all citizens.
Ireland, sir, for good or evil, is like no other place under heaven, and no man can touch its sod or breathe its air without becoming better or worse.
Either in conflict with others or in harmony with them, we go through life like a runaway horse, unable to stop.
The rain came down upon my head - Unshelter'd. And the wind rendered me mad and deaf and blind.
That is someone who follows the teachings of the nonviolent Jesus and takes the gospel personally, and then pays the price. I fall into that category.
The ruling of men is the effort to direct the individual actions of many persons toward some end. This end theoretically should be the greatest good of all, but no human group has ever reached this ideal because of ignorance and selfishness.
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