To make them forget how bad human beings are, they were taught too insistently that bears are good. Instead of being told honestly what humans are an… - Umberto Eco

"But it’s atheists who say that the world wasn’t made by anyone, and you say you’re not an atheist . . ."
I’m not because I can’t bring myself to believe that all these things we see around us — the way trees and fruits grow, and the solar system, and our brains — came about by chance. They’re too well made. And therefore there must have been a creating mind. God.

Stat rosa pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus.

Idiot. Above her head was the only stable point in the cosmos, the only refuge from the damnation of the panta rei, and she guessed it was the Pendulum's business. A moment later the couple went off — he, trained on some textbook that had blunted his capacity for wonder, she, inert and insensitive to the thrill of the infinite, both oblivious of the awesomeness of their encounter — their first and last encounter — with the One, the Ein-Sof, the Ineffable. How could you fail to kneel down before this altar of certitude?