# Quote — G. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

> Last and most important, it is exactly this which explains what is so inexplicable to all the modern critics of the history of Christianity. I mean the monstrous wars about small points of theology, the earthquakes of emotion about a gesture or a word. It was only a matter of an inch; but an inch is everything when you are balancing. The Church could not afford to swerve a hair's breadth on some things if she was to continue her great and daring experiment of the irregular equilibrium. Once let one idea become less powerful and some other idea would become too powerful. It was no flock of sheep the Christian shepherd was leading, but a herd of bulls and tigers, of terrible ideals and devouring doctrines, each one of them strong enough to turn to a false religion and lay waste the world. Remember that the Church went in specifically for dangerous ideas; she was a lion tamer. The idea of birth through a Holy Spirit, of the death of a divine being, of the forgiveness of sins, or the fulfilment of prophecies, are ideas which, any one can see, need but a touch to turn them into something blasphemous or ferocious.

- Author: [G. Chesterton](https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton.md)
- Book: [Orthodoxy](https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton/orthodoxy.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Orthodoxy_(book)#Chapter_VI._%22The_Paradoxes_of_Christianity%22) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton/orthodoxy/last-and-most

## More from this book

> In so far as we desire the definite reconstructions and the dangerous revolutions which have distinguished European civilisation, we shall not discourage the thought of possible ruin; we shall rather encourage it.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton/orthodoxy/in-so-far-as.md)

> Angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton/orthodoxy/angels-can-fly.md)

> Alone of all creeds, Christianity has added courage to the virtues of the Creator. For the only courage worth calling courage must necessarily mean that the soul passes a breaking point—and does not break.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton/orthodoxy/alone-of-all.md)