Marshall Bartley

“Religion is a system of wishful illusions together with a disavowal of reality, such as we find nowhere else but in a state of blissful hallucinatory confusion. Religion's eleventh commandment is "Thou shalt not question.”
― Sigmund Freud, The Future of an Illusion

“Thus I must contradict you when you go on to argue that men are completely unable to do without the consolation of the religious illusion, that without it they could not bear the troubles of life and the cruelties of reality. That is true, certainly, of the men into whom you have instilled the sweet -- or bitter-sweet -- poison from childhood onwards. But what of the other men, who have been sensibly brought up? Perhaps those who do not suffer from the neurosis will need no intoxicant to deaden it. They will, it is true, find themselves in a difficult situation. They will have to admit to themselves the full extent of their helplessness and their insignificance in the machinery of the universe; they can no longer be the centre of creation, no longer the object of tender care on the part of a beneficent Providence. They will be in the same position as a child who has left the parental house where he was so warm and comfortable. But surely infantilism is destined to be surmounted. Men cannot remain children for ever; they must in the end go out into 'hostile life'. We may call this 'education to reality. Need I confess to you that the whole purpose of my book is to point out the necessity for this forward step?”
― Sigmund Freud, The Future of an Illusion

“I do not doubt your visions. But what do they change? Shall we stare up at the shadows and let our blades fall from our hands? Know this, son of Magnus. There is more under the arch of heaven than victory or defeat. We may fall back but not forever. We may feint and we may weave, but not forever. We may yet be doomed to lose all that we cherish, but we shall do so in the knowledge that we could have turned away, and did not. We remained true. They can never have this, not if they burn all we built and scorn us through the dancing flames. You hear me? We remained true.”
― Chris Wraight, The Path of Heaven

“Men are strong so long as they represent a strong idea,they become powerless when they oppose it.”
― Sigmund Freud