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If religion were true, its followers would not try to bludgeon their young into an artificial conformity; but would merely insist on their unbending quest for truth, irrespective of artificial backgrounds or practical consequences.

H. P. Lovecraft

Throw a stick, and the servile dog wheezes and pants and shambles to bring it to you. Do the same before a cat, and he will eye you with coolly polite and somewhat bored amusement.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Amusement Boredom Himself Polite Throw
The world is indeed comic, but the joke is on mankind.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Cosmic Joke Kind Man World
The sole ultimate factor in human decisions is physical force. This we must learn, however repugnant the idea may seem, if we are to protect ourselves and our institutions. Reliance on anything else is fallacious and ruinous.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Decision Factor Force Human Ideas Institution Ourselves Protection Ultimate
The cat is classic whilst the dog is Gothic – nowhere in the animal world can we discover such really Hellenic perfection of form, with anatomy adapted to function, as in the felidae.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Animal Cat Classic Dog Hell World
All attempts at gaining literary polish must begin with judicious reading, and the learner must never cease to hold this phase uppermost. In many cases, the usage of good authors will be found a more effective guide than any amount of precept.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Beginning Goodness Guide Learning Literature
Toil without song is like a weary journey without an end.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

End Journey Sing
One can never produce anything as terrible and impressive as one can awesomely hint about.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Awesome Impressive Production Terrible
From even the greatest of horrors, irony is seldom absent.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Absent Greatness Horror Irony
What a man does for pay is of little significance. What he is, as a sensitive instrument responsive to the world’s beauty, is everything!
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Beautiful Instrument Man Pay Responsive World
Truth is of no practical value to mankind save as it affects terrestrial phenomena, hence the discoveries of science should be concealed or glossed over wherever they conflict with orthodoxy.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Discover Practice Science Truth Value
If I could create an ideal world, it would be an England with the fire of the Elizabethans, the correct taste of the Georgians, and the refinement and pure ideals of the Victorians.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Creation Ideal Myself Taste World
Science, already oppressive with its shocking revelations, will perhaps be the ultimate exterminator of our human species – if separate species we be – for its reserve of unguessed horrors could never be borne by mortal brains if loosed upon the world.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Horror Oppression Science Ultimate World
Very few minds are strictly normal, and all religious fanatics are marked with abnormalities of various sorts.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Mindset Normal Religious Strict
From my experience, I cannot doubt but that man, when lost to terrestrial consciousness, is indeed sojourning in another and uncorporeal life of far different nature from the life we know; and of which only the slightest and most indistinct memories linger after waking.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Conscious Doubt Experience Life Man Memories Wake Up
The reason why time plays a great part in so many of my tales is that this element looms up in my mind as the most profoundly dramatic and grimly terrible thing in the universe.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Drama Element Greatness Play Reason Terrible Time Universe
Life is a hideous thing, and from the background behind what we know of it peer daemoniacal hints of truth which make it sometimes a thousandfold more hideous.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Demon Hide Known Life Ourselves Secret Truth

If religion were true, its followers would not try to bludgeon their young into an artificial conformity; but would merely insist on their unbending quest for truth, irrespective of artificial backgrounds or practical consequences.

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If religion were true, its followers would not try to bludgeon their young into an artificial conformity; but would merely insist on their unbending quest for truth, irrespective of artificial backgrounds or practical consequences.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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