# Quote — Iain M. Banks, The Algebraist

> The idea of faith interested him, even fascinated him, not as an intellectual idea, not as a concept or some abstract theoretical framework, but as a way of controlling people, as a way of understanding and so manipulating them. As a flaw, in the end, as something which was wrong with others that was not wrong with him.

- Author: [Iain M. Banks](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks.md)
- Book: [The Algebraist](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks/the-algebraist.md)
- Page: 223
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Iain_Banks#The_Algebraist_(2004)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks/the-algebraist/the-idea-of-faith

## More from this book

> Which was more likely: what appeared to be the case, or this all being a lie, a set-up, a vast and incomprehensible joke? Discuss.

p. 298 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks/the-algebraist/which-was-more.md)

> He was one of those people who got to the top of an organisation through luck, connections, the indulgence of superiors and that sort of carelessness towards others that the easily impressed termed ruthlessness and those of a less gullible nature called sociopathy. But sometimes, just through his sheer unthinking brusqueness and inability to think through the consequences of a remark, he said what everybody else was only thinking. A comic poet working in obscene doggerel.

p. 316 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks/the-algebraist/he-was-one.md)

> Whether the Dweller List existed or not, everybody appeared to be acting as though it did, and that was all that mattered. It was a bit like money; all about trust, about faith. The value lay in what people believed, not in anything intrinsic.

p. 278 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/iain-m-banks/the-algebraist/whether-the-dweller.md)