# Quote — G. Chesterton, Heretics

> The truth is, that it is quite an error to suppose that absence of definite convictions gives the mind freedom and agility. A man who believes something is ready and witty, because he has all his weapons about him. He can apply his test in an instant. The man engaged in conflict with a man like Mr. Bernard Shaw may fancy he has ten faces; similarly a man engaged against a brilliant duellist may fancy that the sword of his foe has turned to ten swords in his hand. But this is not really because the man is playing with ten swords, it is because he is aiming very straight with one. Moreover, a man with a definite belief always appears bizarre, because he does not change with the world; he has climbed into a fixed star, and the earth whizzes below him like a zoetrope. Millions of mild black-coated men call themselves sane and sensible merely because they always catch the fashionable insanity, because they are hurried into madness after madness by the maelstrom of the world.

- 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_IV:_%22Mr._Bernard_Shaw%22) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Topics: [faith](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/faith.md)
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton/heretics/the-truth-is-that

## 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)