# Quote — G. Chesterton, Heretics

> Ideas are dangerous, but the man to whom they are least dangerous is the man of ideas. He is acquainted with ideas, and moves among them like a lion-tamer. Ideas are dangerous, but the man to whom they are most dangerous is the man of no ideas. The man of no ideas will find the first idea fly to his head like wine to the head of a teetotaller. It is a common error, I think, among the Radical idealists of my own party and period to suggest that financiers and business men are a danger to the empire because they are so sordid or so materialistic. The truth is that financiers and business men are a danger to the empire because they can be sentimental about any sentiment, and idealistic about any ideal, any ideal that they find lying about, just as a boy who has not known much of women is apt too easily to take a woman for the woman, so these practical men, unaccustomed to causes, are always inclined to think that if a thing is proved to be an ideal it is proved to be the ideal.

- 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_XX:_%22Concluding_Remarks_on_the_Importance_of_Orthodoxy%22) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Topics: [thinking](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/thinking.md)
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton/heretics/ideas-are-dangerous

## 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)