There are two irreconcilable ideas of God. There′s the Unknowable Creative Principle — -one believes in That. And there′s the Sum of altruism in man … - John Galsworthy

To take life," went on the old man in a voice which, though charged with strong emotion, seemed to be speaking to itself, "was the chief mark of the insensate barbarism still prevailing in those days. It sprang from that most irreligious fetish, the belief in the permanence of the individual ego after death. From the worship of that fetish had come all the sorrows of the human race. … They did not stop to love each other in this life; they were so sure they had all eternity to do it in. The doctrine was an invention to enable men to act like dogs with clear consciences. Love could never come to full fruition till it was destroyed.

Memory heaps dead leaves on corpse-like deeds, from under which they do but vaguely offend the sense.

God save the pennon, ragged to the dawn,
That signs to moon to stand, and sun to fly; And flutters when the weak is overborne
To stem the tide of fate and certainty.
That knows not reason, and that seeks no fame — So! Undismayed beneath the serried clouds, Raise up the banner of forlorn defence — A jest to the complacency of crowds — Bright-haloed with the one diviner sense:
To hold itself as nothing to itself;
And in the quest of its imagined star
To lose all thought of after-recompense!