Alamut (Scala Translation)

by Vladimir Bartol

it was then I realized that the leadership was intentionally withholding the truth from the people and keeping them ignorant for selfish reasons.

I had just vividly demonstrated to myself what a tremendous force faith is, and how easy it is to awaken. You just need to know a little bit more than the ones who are supposed to believe.

the power of any institution is predicated on followers who have been deceived.

I divide humanity into two fundamentally different layers: the handful that knows what really is, and the vast multitudes that don’t know. The former are called to lead, the latter to be led. The former are like parents, the latter like children. The former know that truth is unattainable, while the latter reach their arms out for it. What else can the former do, but feed them fairy tales and fabrications?

“When a woman starts thinking, she becomes dangerous.”

either there is no power above us, or else it’s supremely indifferent to everything that happens down here.

A person can spend his whole life between four walls. If he doesn’t think or feel that he’s a prisoner, then he’s not a prisoner. But then there are people for whom the whole planet is a prison, who see the infinite expanse of the universe, the millions of stars and galaxies that remain forever inaccessible to them. And that awareness makes them the greatest prisoners of time and space.”