Julian Rathbone > Quotes

“Perhaps that is the true definition of pragmatism – an ability to deceive oneself and so turn one’s back on principle, law or custom if they stand in the way of what one wants.”
― Julian Rathbone, The Last English King

“Brother Peter again became animated. ‘It depends,’ he said, and the words tumbled out like nuts from a sack, ‘how that willing consent is obtained. If lies are fed to the people for generation after generation and never questioned, they become part of the unconsidered background to their mental lives, never truly looked at or examined, hardly even thought of, but controlling everything in the foreground of their thoughts. By these means, as powerful, as all-pervading but as unnoticed as those that cause an object released in air to drop, is the consent of the people contrived and maintained. And anything that threatens to undermine this invisible wall of belief, the way gunpowder can blow down a castle wall, must be treated as anathema, a burning matter.”
― Julian Rathbone, Kings Of Albion