Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Quote of the Day

"If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly."
G.K. Chesterton




















What do you think he meant?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

My study of Chesterton is not significant, however, I do seem to remember that he loved to write in paradox. I believe that he is speaking to our sense of wanting a "professional" to do a work versus an "amateur". While certain things in life require the exacting nature of a professional, it is the balance of duties in life filled with mistakes, lessons learned, do-overs, crossed paths, etc. that combine to create the richness of life itself. $.02

Now let me get up on this box of soap and tell you my thoughts on calling the trained versus training the called in churches across the world...

Travis Greene said...

I see your soapbox about training the called, and raise you not believing in any kind of clergy/layperson, called/uncalled distinction at all. Everybody's called.

rhymeswithplague said...

A working colleague of mine used to say this, and though it shocked me at first, I have come to agree with it. If anything is worth doing at all, it is worth doing badly, because something worthwhile being done badly is better than something worthwhile not being done at all. Of course, it's not as good as doing it well, but that is another thought entirely.

Anonymous said...

I see your "not believing in any kind of clergy/layperson, etc." and raise you - let's move to a commune ranch in big sky country where things are just as we see fit. And there are unicorns. Lots of pretty unicorns.

Travis Greene said...

Hey man. Unicorns exist. They're in the Bible. (The KJV at least. It's a mistranslation, but still...)

The commune thing is a great idea though.