What a strange thing then is this great civilization, that no sooner have men attained it than they seek to… — George R. Stewart

What would be the use of all these books now? Why worry about one of them? Why worry about all the millions of them? There was no one left, now, to carry on. Books themselves, mere wood pulp and lampblack, were nothing—without a mind to use them.

How then, once overthrown, shall this great civilization, except by renewed Forces and Pressures, ever come again?

Perhaps rationalism—like so much else—had only been one of the luxuries which men could afford under civilization.