Conclave

by Robert Harris

The vulgar always assumed it was best to try to know everything; in his experience it was often better to know as little as possible.

The men who are dangerous – the men who must be stopped – are the ones who actively desire it.’

My body is clay, my good fame a vapour, my end is ashes.

To work together, and grow together, we must be tolerant, because all of the body’s limbs are needed. No one person or faction should seek to dominate another.

Our faith is a living thing precisely because it walks hand in hand with doubt. If there was only certainty, and if there was no doubt, there would be no mystery, and therefore no need for faith.

‘Any man who is truly worthy must consider himself unworthy.

We are mortal men. We serve an ideal; we cannot always be ideal.’

Was it really possible that he had spent the past thirty years worshipping the Church rather than God?

‘No one who follows their conscience ever does wrong, Your Eminence. The consequences may not turn out as we intend; it may prove in time that we made a mistake. But that is not the same as being wrong. The only guide to a person’s actions can ever be their conscience, for it is in our conscience that we most clearly hear the voice of God.’

I am what God made me, Your Eminence. It seemed to me more of a sin to correct His handiwork than to leave my body as it was.