# Quote — G. Chesterton, Heretics > Charity is a fashionable virtue in our time; it is lit up by the gigantic firelight of Dickens. Hope is a fashionable virtue to-day; our attention has been arrested for it by the sudden and silver trumpet of Stevenson. But faith is unfashionable, and it is customary on every side to cast against it the fact that it is a paradox. Everybody mockingly repeats the famous childish definition that faith is "the power of believing that which we know to be untrue." Yet it is not one atom more paradoxical than hope or charity. Charity is the power of defending that which we know to be indefensible. Hope is the power of being cheerful in circumstances which we know to be desperate. It is true that there is a state of hope which belongs to bright prospects and the morning; but that is not the virtue of hope. The virtue of hope exists only in earthquake and, eclipse. It is true that there is a thing crudely called charity, which means charity to the deserving poor; but charity to the deserving is not charity at all, but justice. It is the undeserving who require it, and the ideal either does not exist at all, or exists wholly for them. For practical purposes it is at the hopeless moment that we require the hopeful man, and the virtue either does not exist at all, or begins to exist at that moment. Exactly at the instant when hope ceases to be reasonable it begins to be useful. Now the old pagan world went perfectly straightforward until it discovered that going straightforward is an enormous mistake. It was nobly and beautifully reasonable, and discovered in its death-pang this lasting and valuable truth, a heritage for the ages, that reasonableness will not do. The pagan age was truly an Eden or golden age, in this essential sense, that it is not to be recovered. - Author: [G. Chesterton](https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton.md) - Book: [Heretics](https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton/heretics.md) - Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Heretics_(book)#Chapter_XII:_%22Paganism_and_Mr._Lowes_Dickinson%22) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)) - Topics: [faith](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/faith.md), [hope](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/hope.md) - Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton/heretics/charity-is-a-fashionable ## More from this book > And it is not very difficult to see where we have really to look for it. The people (as I tactfully pointed out to them) who really take the name of the Lord in vain are the clergymen themselves. The thing which is fundamentally and really frivolous is not a careless joke. The thing which is fundamentally and really frivolous is a careless solemnity. If Mr. McCabe really wishes to know what sort of guarantee of reality and solidity is afforded by the mere act of what is called talking seriously, let him spend a happy Sunday in going the round of the pulpits. Or, better still, let him drop in at the House of Commons or the House of Lords. Even Mr. McCabe would admit that these men are solemn—more solemn than I am. And even Mr. McCabe, I think, would admit that these men are frivolous—more frivolous than I am. Why should Mr. McCabe be so eloquent about the danger arising from fantastic and paradoxical writers? Why should he be so ardent in desiring grave and verbose writers? There are not so very many fantastic and paradoxical writers. But there are a gigantic number of grave and verbose writers; and it is by the efforts of the grave and verbose writers that everything that Mr. McCabe detests (and everything that I detest, for that matter) is kept in existence and energy. How can it have come about that a man as intelligent as Mr. McCabe can think that paradox and jesting stop the way? It is solemnity that is stopping the way in every department of modern effort. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton/heretics/and-it-is-not.md) Topics: [appearances](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/appearances.md) > Whistler could produce art; and in so far he was a great man. But he could not forget art; and in so far he was only a man with the artistic temperament. There can be no stronger manifestation of the man who is a really great artist than the fact that he can dismiss the subject of art; that he can, upon due occasion, wish art at the bottom of the sea. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton/heretics/whistler-could-produce.md) Topics: [art](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/art.md) > The men who have really been the bold artists, the realistic artists, the uncompromising artists, are the men who have turned out, after all, to be writing "with a purpose." [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton/heretics/the-men-who.md) Topics: [art](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/art.md), [writing](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/writing.md)