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The Lack of Light

by Nino Haratischwili

bookshelves: currently-reading, historical-fiction

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Jul 18, 2026 03:56PM

“Miracles exist only through man's ignorance. In ancient times any occurrence that could not be explained through natural causes was considered a miracle, and the greater the ignorance of the masses about the workings of Nature, the greater the number of miracles.”
― Irvin D. Yalom, The Spinoza Problem

2 likes

“Everyone knows the feeling of excitement on discovering a book that unlocks the imagination; it enables us to inhabit another world - of heightened language, thought and ideas. Great literature holds the seed of a kind of liberation that remains with us throughout life”
― Michael Wood, Shakespeare

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“By the end of the nineteenth century, India was Britain’s biggest source of revenue, the world’s biggest purchaser of British exports and the source of highly paid employment for British civil servants and soldiers all at India’s own expense. Indians literally paid for their own oppression.”
― Shashi Tharoor, Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India

6 likes

“To believe in a god is in one way to express a willingness to believe in anything. Whereas to reject the belief is by no means to profess belief in nothing.”
― Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

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“It has occurred to me that the ultimate basis of man's need for religion is infantile helplessness, which is so much greater in man than in animals. After infancy he cannot conceive of a world without parents and makes for him a just God and a kindly nature, the two worst anthropomorphic falsifications he could have imagined.”
― Sigmund Freud, The Freud/Jung Letters

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