My daughter Karina recently posted this from one of her favorites and mine, G.K. Chesterton (British journalist, writer, and Christian apologist, 1874-1936). He has a number of great books, nonfiction and fiction. If I were to choose just one as my favorite, it would be The Everlasting Man. I also like his Father Brown mysteries, his book Orthodoxy and his little (and little known) biographies of Aquinas and Francis of Assisi.

Two stubborn pieces of iron

Very few people ever state properly the strong argument in favour of marrying for love or against marrying for money. The argument is not that all lovers are heroes and heroines, nor is it that all dukes are profligates or all millionaires cads. The argument is this, that the differences between a man and a woman are at the best so obstinate and exasperating that they practically cannot be got over unless there is an atmosphere of exaggerated tenderness and mutual interest. To put the matter in one metaphor, the sexes are two stubborn pieces of iron; if they are to be welded together, it must be while they are red-hot. Every woman has to find out that her husband is a selfish beast, because every man is a selfish beast by the standard of a woman. But let her find out the beast while they are both still in the story of "Beauty and the Beast." Every man has to find out that his wife is cross—that is to say, sensitive to the point of madness: for every woman is mad by the masculine standard. But let him find out that she is mad while her madness is more worth considering than anyone else's sanity.

—G.K. Chesterton, The Common Man

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