Chesterton on Making Ourselves

“The pessimists believe that the cosmos is a clock that is running down; the progressives believe it is a clock that they themselves are winding up. But I happen to believe that the world is what we choose to make it, and that we are what we choose to make ourselves; and that our renaissance or our ruin will alike, ultimately and equally, testify with a trumpet to our liberty."

—G.K. Chesterton, The Illustrated London News, July 10, 1920