{
  "type": "quote",
  "site": {
    "name": "Leafy Quotes",
    "language": "en",
    "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com"
  },
  "formats": "Every page has two versions with the same data: JSON (the page address + .json) and markdown (the page address + .md). Append .json or .md to any `url` in this document.",
  "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-moorcock/the-steel-tsar/i-understood-that",
  "json": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-moorcock/the-steel-tsar/i-understood-that.json",
  "markdown": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-moorcock/the-steel-tsar/i-understood-that.md",
  "id": "0ce7ce08-4160-40c0-8bb6-0468ea217f89",
  "slug": "i-understood-that",
  "text": "I understood that it was only the very best in us, our capacity for love and self-respect, that enabled us to survive in a perpetually fragmenting multiverse. Only our deepest sense of justice allowed us to remain sane and relish the wonders of chaotic Time and Space, to be free at least of fear. Further violence would bring only an endless chain of bloodshed and an inevitable descent of our race into bestiality and ultimate insentience. To survive, we must love.",
  "language": "en",
  "author": {
    "name": "Michael Moorcock",
    "slug": "michael-moorcock",
    "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-moorcock"
  },
  "book": {
    "title": "The Steel Tsar",
    "slug": "the-steel-tsar",
    "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-moorcock/the-steel-tsar"
  },
  "character": null,
  "chapter": null,
  "chapter_parent": null,
  "page": 388,
  "verified": false,
  "original": null,
  "other_languages": [],
  "topics": [
    {
      "name": "love",
      "slug": "love",
      "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/love"
    },
    {
      "name": "survival",
      "slug": "survival",
      "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/survival"
    }
  ],
  "source": {
    "name": "Wikiquote",
    "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Michael_Moorcock#The_Steel_Tsar_(1981)",
    "license": {
      "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0",
      "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
    }
  },
  "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:48:44",
  "more_from_book": [
    {
      "id": "e72a52c2-2474-46bb-ad29-033156dbd821",
      "slug": "here-the-idea",
      "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-moorcock/the-steel-tsar/here-the-idea",
      "text": "Here the idea of God has been replaced by the idea of the Future. The two notions are, admittedly, all but identical in the way in which they are self-contradictory and thus always fundamentally confusing to their worshippers, who must look to priests for translation, and so inevitably the priests (or whatever they call them) gradually take power...",
      "language": "en",
      "character": null,
      "chapter": null,
      "chapter_parent": null,
      "page": 413,
      "verified": false,
      "original": null,
      "other_languages": [],
      "topics": [
        {
          "name": "religion",
          "slug": "religion",
          "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/religion"
        },
        {
          "name": "the future",
          "slug": "the-future",
          "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-future"
        }
      ],
      "source": {
        "name": "Wikiquote",
        "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Michael_Moorcock#The_Steel_Tsar_(1981)",
        "license": {
          "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0",
          "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
        }
      },
      "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:48:44"
    },
    {
      "id": "e69e4e1f-36ab-42b5-a5fc-1fb61f7887d8",
      "slug": "unlike-so-many",
      "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-moorcock/the-steel-tsar/unlike-so-many",
      "text": "Unlike so many politicians or military leaders they made no attempt to justify their mistakes, to cling to power. For them power held enormous responsibility and was merely invested in them temporarily.",
      "language": "en",
      "character": null,
      "chapter": null,
      "chapter_parent": null,
      "page": 370,
      "verified": false,
      "original": null,
      "other_languages": [],
      "topics": [
        {
          "name": "power",
          "slug": "power",
          "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/power"
        },
        {
          "name": "responsibility",
          "slug": "responsibility",
          "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/responsibility"
        }
      ],
      "source": {
        "name": "Wikiquote",
        "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Michael_Moorcock#The_Steel_Tsar_(1981)",
        "license": {
          "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0",
          "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
        }
      },
      "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:48:44"
    },
    {
      "id": "ce71f394-adea-46b6-bb8b-ad3311042ce1",
      "slug": "we-are-still",
      "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-moorcock/the-steel-tsar/we-are-still",
      "text": "“We are still ruled, in some ways, by our Church. We are a people more cursed by religion and its manifestations and assumptions than any other. The Steel Tsar, with his messianic socialism, offers us religion again, perhaps. You English have never had quite the same need for God. We have known despair and conquest too often to ignore Him altogether.” He shrugged. “Old habits, Mr Bastable. Religion is the panacea for defeat. We have a great tendency to rationalize our despair in mystical and utopian terms.”",
      "language": "en",
      "character": null,
      "chapter": null,
      "chapter_parent": null,
      "page": 361,
      "verified": false,
      "original": null,
      "other_languages": [],
      "topics": [
        {
          "name": "religion",
          "slug": "religion",
          "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/religion"
        },
        {
          "name": "despair",
          "slug": "despair",
          "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/despair"
        }
      ],
      "source": {
        "name": "Wikiquote",
        "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Michael_Moorcock#The_Steel_Tsar_(1981)",
        "license": {
          "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0",
          "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
        }
      },
      "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:48:44"
    }
  ]
}