Heretics

by G.K. Chesterton

The man was proud of being orthodox, was proud of being right. If he stood alone in a howling wilderness he was more than a man; he was a church.

The word “heresy” not only means no longer being wrong; it practically means being clear-headed and courageous.

But there are some people, nevertheless—and I am one of them—who think that the most practical and important thing about a man is still his view of the universe.

Blasphemy depends upon belief, and is fading with it.

For these reasons, and for many more, I for one have come to believe in going back to fundamentals. Such is the general idea of this book. I wish to deal with my most distinguished contemporaries, not personally or in a merely literary manner, but in relation to the real body of doctrine which they teach.

I am concerned with him as a Heretic—that is to say, a man whose philosophy is quite solid, quite coherent, and quite wrong.

All I venture to point out, with an increased firmness, is that this omission, good or bad, does leave us face to face with the problem of a human consciousness filled with very definite images of evil, and with no definite image of good.

The human race, according to religion, fell once, and in falling gained knowledge of good and of evil. Now we have fallen a second time, and only the knowledge of evil remains to us.

What is the good of begetting a man until we have settled what is the good of being a man?

Nobody has any business to use the word “progress” unless he has a definite creed and a cast-iron code of morals. Nobody can be progressive without being doctrinal; I might almost say that nobody can be progressive without being infallible—at any rate, without believing in some infallibility. For progress by its very name indicates a direction; and the moment we are in the least doubtful about the direction, we become in the same degree doubtful about the progress.

There is no such thing on earth as an uninteresting subject; the only thing that can exist is an uninterested person.

Posting a letter and getting married are among the few things left that are entirely romantic; for to be entirely romantic a thing must be irrevocable.

The one genuinely dangerous and immoral way of drinking wine is to drink it as a medicine.

Drink because you are happy, but never because you are miserable.