Editing G. K. Chesterton (section)

=== Wilde===
In his book ''[[Heretics (book)|Heretics]]'', Chesterton said this of [[Oscar Wilde]]: "The same lesson [of the pessimistic pleasure-seeker] was taught by the very powerful and very desolate philosophy of Oscar Wilde. It is the [[carpe diem]] religion; but the carpe diem religion is not the religion of happy people, but of very unhappy people. Great joy does not gather the rosebuds while it may; its eyes are fixed on the immortal rose which Dante saw."{{Sfn|Chesterton|1905|loc=[https://web.archive.org/web/20170115201317/http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/heretics/ch7.html chapter 7]}} More briefly, and with a closer approximation to Wilde's own style, he wrote in his 1908 book ''[[Orthodoxy (book)|Orthodoxy]]'' concerning the necessity of making symbolic sacrifices for the gift of creation: "Oscar Wilde said that sunsets were not valued because we could not pay for sunsets. But Oscar Wilde was wrong; we can pay for sunsets. We can pay for them by not being Oscar Wilde."