Too far a retreat from reality is insanity. - Poul Anderson

Look, these were none of them supermen. In fact, they were either weaklings who’d been assigned civilian-type jobs, or warriors as ignorant and superstitious as brutal. Aside from what specialized training fitted them for Wallis’s purposes, he’d never tried to get them properly educated. If nothing else, that might have led to questioning of his righteousness and infallibility.

For the ordinary man, instability—change—means dislocation, war, uncertainty, misery, and death.

I have learned much in two thousand years, but nothing about any gods, except that they too, arise, change, age, and die. Whatever there is beyond the universe, if anything, I doubt it concerns itself with us.