There’s faith that knows itself as faith, Proyas, and there’s faith that confuses itself for knowledge. The first embraces uncertainty, acknowledges the mysteriousness of the God. It begets compassion and tolerance. Who can entirely condemn when they’re not entirely certain they’re in the right? But the second, Proyas, the second embraces certainty and only pays lip service to the God’s mystery. It begets intolerance, hatred, violence.

Consequences lost all purchase when they became mad. And desperation, when pressed beyond anguish, became narcotic.

Love is lust made meaningful. Hope is hunger made human.

Here we find further argument for Gotagga’s supposition that the world is round. How else could all men stand higher than their brothers?

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.

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?

To indulge it is to breed it. To punish it is to feed it. Madness knows no bridle but the knife.