A man with extraordinary heart and intellect, Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936) was born on this day in London, England.

He drew caricatures of his teachers as a youth and shifted from art to writing, launching a prolific career that included over 100 books, essays, poetry, and acclaimed biographies.

His popular detective-priest Father Brown series was adapted into films. Known for his wit, paradox, and optimism, he believed, “Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.”

“The really great person is the person who makes every person feel great,” he once said. He called paradox “truth standing on its head to gain attention.”

Friend to George Bernard Shaw and H.G. Wells, Chesterton’s biographies celebrated the humanity of Charles Dickens, William Blake, and others. He also studied spirituality deeply and converted to Catholicism after writing Orthodoxy (1908).

“Every man in the street is a great might-not-have-been,” Chesterton reflected in Orthodoxy (1908), offering a compassionate lens on humanity’s unrealized dreams. His writing gently invited readers to believe again—in wonder, in paradox, in the holy joy of living fully.

With characteristic wit and wisdom, he mused, “I came to the conclusion that the optimist thought everything good except the pessimist, and the pessimist thought everything bad except himself.”

Through his soulful play of ideas, Chesterton reminded us: it’s possible to think deeply, laugh freely, and still float like an angel—when you carry lightness in your heart.