Though all men be equally frail before the world, the differences between them are terrifying.

What if the choice isn’t between certainties, between this faith and that, but between faith and doubt? Between renouncing the mystery and embracing it?

Everyone thinks they've won the Magical Belief Lottery. Everyone thinks they more or less have a handle on things, that they, as opposed to the billions who disagree with them, have somehow lucked into the one true belief system.

There was such a difference, he thought, between the beauty that illuminated, and the beauty that was illuminated.

The bondage we are born into is the bondage we cannot see. Verily, freedom is little more than the ignorance of tyranny. Live long enough, and you will see: Men resent not the whip so much as the hand that wields it.

Though all men be equally frail before the world, the differences between them are terrifying.

It is only after that we understand what has come before, then we understand nothing. Thus we shall define the soul as follows: that which precedes everything.