Civilization is perhaps approaching one of those long winters that overtake it from time to time. Romantic Christendom - picturesque, passionate, unhappy episode - may be coming to an end. Such a catastrophe would be no reason for despair.

Religions are the great fairy tales of conscience.

Towers in a modern town are a frill and a survival; they seem like the raised hands of the various churches, afraid of being overlooked, and saying to the forgetful public, Here I am! Or perhaps they are rival lightning rods, saying to the emanations of divine grace, "Please strike here!

Children are natural mythologists: they beg to be told tales, and love not only to invent but to enact falsehoods.

History is a pack of lies about events that never happened told by people who weren't there.

Man has an inexhuastible faculty for lying, especially to himself.

Tyrants are seldom free; the cares and the instruments of their tyranny enslave them.