“Well,” said Beatty, “the crisis is past and all is well, the sheep returns to the fold. We’re all sheep who have strayed at times. Truth is truth, to the end of reckoning, we’ve cried. They are never alone that are accompanied with noble thoughts, we’ve shouted to ourselves. ‘Sweet food of sweetly uttered knowledge,’ Sir Philip Sidney said. But on the other hand: ‘Words are like leaves and where they most abound, Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found.’ Alexander Pope. What do you think of that, Montag?”
Beatty abohrs books and the knowledge therein, but nevertheless doesn't refrain from using them to make himself seem intellectually superior. Is the irony lost on him, or is he playing for some higher endgame? Beatty is obviously a smart guy, but does he himself realize it, and to what end?
