If America was a person, — and it sat down, — Lancaster town would be plunged into a Darkness unbreathable.

Doctor Labyrinth, like most people who read a great deal and who have too much time on their hands, had become convinced that our civilization was going the way of Rome. He saw, I think, the same cracks forming that had sundered the ancient world, the world of Greece and Rome; and it was his conviction that presently our world, our society, would pass away as theirs did, and a period of darkness would follow.

Deprived of America, we must sink into a petty state, when compared to some of the great powers on the continent. Holding America in a state of unconstitutional subjection, we would shortly become slaves, or at least hold the mere shadow of our former liberties, at the will and pleasure of the crown, and its subordinate instruments. Having thus explained his present opinions and future apprehensions, he said, he would sit down with this open declaration, that he never would serve with any man, be his abilities what they might, who would either maintain it was right, or consent to acknowledge the independency of America.

there have been times when I have thought, if the whole country would sink, and hide all this injustice and misery from the light, I would willingly sink with it.

"Here's something else I'd like your opinion about," I said. "If he went back underground and sat down again in the same spot, wouldn't the sudden transition from the sunlight mean that his eyes would be overwhelmed by darkness?"

"Certainly," he replied.

"Now, the process of adjustment would be quite long this time, and suppose that before his eyes had settled down and while he wasn't seeing well, he had once again to compete against those same old prisoners at identifying those shadows. Would he make a fool of himself? Wouldn't they say that he'd come back from his upward journey with his eyes ruined, and that it wasn't even worth trying to go up there? And would they — if they could — grab hold of anyone who tried to set them free and take them up there and kill him?"

I mean talk about decadence, he declared, how decadent can a society get? Look at it this way. This country's probably the psychiatric, psychoanalytical capital of the world.

Argus, you are fallen, and the light in all your lamps is utterly put out: one hundred eyes, one darkness all the same!

[I]n the words of Chairman Mao, 'It's darkest before it's totally black.'

Donald was verging on the sad realization that humanity had been thrown to the brink of extinction by insane men in positions of power following one another, each thinking the others knew where they were going.

Given eternity in which to work, everyone would eventually stumble into the abyss, just as all matter would eventually be swallowed by black holes.

One of the things we see happening is a sort of sleepwalking into a dictatorship in the United States.