# Quote — G. Chesterton, Heretics > Truths turn into dogmas the instant that they are disputed. Thus every man who utters a doubt defines a religion. And the scepticism of our time does not really destroy the beliefs, rather it creates them; gives them their limits and their plain and defiant shape. We who are Liberals once held Liberalism lightly as a truism. Now it has been disputed, and we hold it fiercely as a faith. We who believe in patriotism once thought patriotism to be reasonable, and thought little more about it. Now we know it to be unreasonable, and know it to be right. We who are Christians never knew the great philosophic common sense which inheres in that mystery until the anti-Christian writers pointed it out to us. The great march of mental destruction will go on. Everything will be denied. Everything will become a creed. It is a reasonable position to deny the stones in the street; it will be a religious dogma to assert them. It is a rational thesis that we are all in a dream; it will be a mystical sanity to say that we are all awake. Fires will be kindled to testify that two and two make four. Swords will be drawn to prove that leaves are green in summer. We shall be left defending, not only the incredible virtues and sanities of human life, but something more incredible still, this huge impossible universe which stares us in the face. We shall fight for visible prodigies as if they were invisible. We shall look on the impossible grass and the skies with a strange courage. We shall be of those who have seen and yet have believed. - 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: [truth](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/truth.md), [faith](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/faith.md), [doubt](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/doubt.md) - Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton/heretics/truths-turn-into ## 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)