Just as an atmospheric pollution exists that poisons the environment and living beings, thus a pollution of heart and spirit exists that mortifies and poisons spiritual life.

Sometimes I feel I am crammed with demons.

This planet has — or rather had — a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much all of the time.

This planet has — or rather had — a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much all of the time.

This planet has — or rather had — a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much all of the time.

Too many people, when they reject God, go on believing in the devil. Many intellectuals have a sense of evil without a confidence in good.

We have fallen on hard times of the spirit, with many of the people more concerned with fear of evil than contemplation of the good.

...But they had, perversely, been living among people who were peering into the wrong end of the telescope, or something, and who had convinced themselves that the opposite was true - that the world had once been a splendid, orderly place...and that everything had been slowly, relentlessly falling apart ever since.

Verily, the weight of half of disbelief in the world is carried by religious people who made God detestable to His servants.

The more perfect a person is on the outside, the more demons they have on the inside.

Like a lot of once devout people who have lost their faith, I had holes the size of heaven and hell in my head and in my heart.

Spirituality really lost its way when it became a stick to beat people with: ‘Do this or you’ll burn in hell.

man became overrational and forgot the gods and demons, relegating them to the realm of outworn superstitions. He looked for them in the skies and found only infinite spaces, dead rocks, and orbs of burning gas. He looked for them in thunder and wind and found only unintelligent forces of the atmosphere. He looked for them in woods and caverns and found only scuttling animals, creaking branches, shadows, and drafts. He thought that the gods were dead but in fact they became much more alive and dangerous because they were able to work unrecognized.

This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movement of small green pieces of paper, which was odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.