Mr Darwin's Gardener

they feel that despair is not the hardest thing in life – the absence of hope is.

Those who hold the present moment in their hands have power.

Do-gooders understand disease and even death, but not the fact that I want to be alone. Solitude is what they themselves fear most.

The church is horrified by the thought that it is redundant in the great renovation of mankind, which sees the hereafter being built into the here and now. No need to seek the way and the truth when one is building railways and consuming electricity, which, like the spirit, is invisible.

I don’t understand turning the other cheek. If you don’t stand up for yourself you have only yourself to blame.

Man withers without love.

But what can we do with the madness of the big wide world, when it is disguised as wisdom? It is incurable.

You can seek help from heaven, because it is the only place with no people.

You can forget the need to live if there is something else to do.

Godlessness does not evaporate in church; rather, it thickens when there is a crowd.