when men seek a god . . . they make one like themselves, only larger, uglier, and more evil . . . Also, often they say that this god was once their k… - H. Rider Haggard

I wonder whether many people understand, as I do, how entirely distinct and how variable are these moods which sway us, or at any rate some of us, at sundry periods of our lives. As I think I have already suggested, at one time we are all spiritual; at another all physical; at one time we are sure that our lives here are as a dream and a shadow and that the real existence lies elsewhere; at another that these brief days of ours are the only business with which we have to do and that of it we must make the best. At one time we think our loves much more immortal than the stars; at another that they are mere shadows cast by the baleful sun of desire upon the shallow and fleeting water we call Life which seems to flow out of nowhere into nowhere. At one time we are full of faith, at another all such hopes are blotted out by a black wall of Nothingness, and so on ad infinitum. Only very stupid people, or humbugs, are or pretend to be, always consistent and unchanging.

. . . is [it] better to be alive or dead[?] The religious plump for the latter, though I have never observed that the religious are more eager to die than the rest of us poor mortals.

The shaft of my vengeance fell upon my own head.