Delusion is a common human condition. At certain times and in certain strata of society it can be especially prevalent. That is how it is in our time in our Christian society, for it cannot be otherwise among people who either do not know any higher law of life, or who know it but do not fulfill it.
No matter who commits a sin, it is most terrible when a learned person does it. An ignorant and depraved commoner is better than a learned person with no self-restraint, because the former went astray owing to his blindness, but the latter fell into a well despite being sighted.
— Saadi
Such is the sin of the people of our time, enlightened by Christianity and connected by means of communication they never had before.
Man has lost the soul out of him; and now, after the due period—begins to find the want of it! This is verily the plague-spot; centre of the universal Social Gangrene, threatening all modern things with frightful death. There is no religion; there is no God; man has lost his soul, and vainly seeks antiseptic salt; but the foul elephantine leprosy, alleviated for an hour, reappears in new force and desperateness next hour.
— Carlyle
Our newspapers with their descriptions of all kinds of crimes and horrors are a kind of supplement to our breakfasts of meat. Is there anything surprising in the fact that, having subjected their souls to the pernicious influence of both this and the other, people become inclined to quarrel, war and suicide? Would it not be strange to see them happy after starting the day like this? The weakening influence of their spiritual and bodily food must inevitably bring them to a state of constant anxiety, suffering and despair.
— Lucy Mallory
People rush from place to place in search of pleasure only because they feel the emptiness of their lives but do not yet feel the emptiness of the new diversion that is attracting them.
— Pascal
Everything that we do to secure our lives is exactly the same thing that an ostrich does when it hides its head to avoid seeing itself being killed. We do worse than the ostrich: we ruin for certain our certain life in a certain present for the sake of a doubtful security for a doubtful life in a doubtful future.
Take one glance at the life of our wealthy classes and you will see that everything that they do to allegedly secure their lives, they do for a very different reason, and that is to forget that life can never be and will never be secure.
The people of our time are trying to convince themselves that no one can see all of the senselessness and cruelty of our life, with the insane wealth of the few, with the envious, embittered poverty of the majority, with violence, armaments and wars, and that nothing prevents them from continuing to lead a life like this.
Delusion does not stop being delusion just because it is shared by the majority.
