Adversaria (36)
‘…the unchallengeable opinions of the accredited expounders of Christianity carried infinitely greater weight with their illiterate hearers than, say, those of the press lords with their readers today. Competition had not yet reduced man’s opinion of the value of the commodity supplied.’ —Christopher Hill (The Century of Revolution, p. 77)
‘…a cynical unscrupulousness in high places is not incompatible with a general belief in the validity of moral standards which are contradicted by it.’ —R.H. Tawney (Religion and the Rise of Capitalism, p. 19)
‘…when we don’t have a name for what we’re experiencing, it’s hard to talk about it with any specificity’ —Allison Daminger (What’s on Her Mind, 16%)
There is a magic mirror in which each order and organ of society, as the consciousness of its character and destiny dawns on it, looks for a moment, before the dust of conflict or the glamour of success obscures its vision. In that enchanted glass, it sees its own lineaments reflected with ravishing allurements; for what it sees is not what it is, but what in the eyes of mankind and of its own heart it would be. […] Then an air stirred and the glass was dimmed. It was long before any questioned it again.