The Cell Door Slammed Behind Rubishov.

Indeed, The Ideal For A Well-functioning Democratic State Is Like The Ideal For A Gentleman's Well-cut Suit It Is Not Noticed. For The Common People Of Britain, Gestapo And Concentration Camps Have Approximately The Same Degree Of Reality As The Monster Of Loch Ness. Atrocity Propaganda Is Helpless Against This Healthy Lack Of Imagination.

Einstein's Space Is No Closer To Reality Than Van Gogh's Sky . The Glory Of Science Is Not In A Truth More Absolute Than The Truth Of Bach Or Tolstoy, But In The Act Of Creation Itself. The Scientist's Discoveries Impose His Own Order On Chaos, As The Composer Or Painter Imposes His; An Order That Always Refers To Limited Aspects Of Reality, And Is Based On The Observer's Frame Of Reference, Which Differs From Period To Period As A Rembrant Nude Differs From A Nude By Manet.

I Went To Communism As One Goes To A Spring Of Fresh Water, And I Left Communism As One Clambers Out Of A Poisoned River Strewn With The Wreckage Of Flooded Cities And The Corpses Of The Drowned.

The Greatest Temptation For The Like Of Us Is: To Renounce Violence, To Repent, To Make Peace With Oneself. Most Revolutionaries Fell Before This Temptation, From Spartacus To Danton And Dostoevsky; They Are The Classical Form Of Betrayal Of The Cause. The Temptations Of God Were Always More Dangerous For Mankind Than Those Of Satan. As Long As Chaos Dominates The World, God Is An Anachronism; And Every Compromise With One’s Own Conscience Is Perfidy. When The Accursed Inner Voice Speaks To You, Hold Your Hands Over Your Ears….

In The Index To The Six Hundred Odd Pages Of Arnold Toynbee's A Study Of History, Abridged Version, The Names Of Copernicus, Galileo, Descartes And Newton Do Not Occur Yet Their Cosmic Quest Destroyed The Medieval Vision Of An Immutable Social Order In A Walled-in Universe And Transformed The European Landscape, Society, Culture, Habits And General Outlook, As Thoroughly As If A New Species Had Arisen On This Planet.