A man cannot pay that kind of reverence to truth solid as marble; they can only be reverent towards a beautiful lie.
 G. K. Chesterton, Heretics (1905). copy citation

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Author G. K. Chesterton
Source Heretics
Topic truth reverence
Date 1905
Language English
Reference
Note
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/files/470/470-h/470-h.htm

Context

“They are not reverent any more than Roman Catholics are reverent, for reverence in the sad and delicate meaning of the term reverence is a thing only possible to infidels. That beautiful twilight you will find in Euripides, in Renan, in Matthew Arnold; but in men who believe you will not find it—you will find only laughter and war. A man cannot pay that kind of reverence to truth solid as marble; they can only be reverent towards a beautiful lie. And the Salvation Army, though their voice has broken out in a mean environment and an ugly shape, are really the old voice of glad and angry faith, hot as the riots of Dionysus, wild as the gargoyles of Catholicism, not to be mistaken for a philosophy.” source