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“But how was life produced? … Although the ideals of the Cynic and Stoic preachers were high, these preachers never succeeded in transforming society. The strange thing about Christianity was that it adopted an entirely different method. It transformed the lives of men not by appealing to the human will, but by telling a story; not by exhortation, but by the narration of an event.”

“This carload of torn sails is more legible and interesting now than if they should be wrought into paper and printed books. Who can write so graphically the history of the storms they have weathered as these rents have done? They are proof-sheets which need no correction.” (p. 143-144)

“What should we think of the shepherd’s life if his flocks always wandered to higher pastures than his thoughts?”

“But lo! Men have become the tools of their tools. The man who independently plucked the fruits when he was hungry is become a farmer; and he who stood under a tree for shelter, a housekeeper.”

“Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but religiously follows the new.”

“[M]any of the so-called comforts of life are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.”

“But at any moment now a word, a gesture, the most trivial act might be her sesame—to what? Captain Fellows was touched with fear; he was aware of an inordinate love which robbed him of authority. You cannot control what you love—you watch it driving recklessly towards the broken bridge, the torn-up track, the horror of seventy years ahead. He closed his eyes—he was a happy man—and hummed a tune.”

reading dystopian novels to prepare for election season 😇