The Four-Gated City Quotes

“That is what learning is. You suddenly understand something you’ve understood all your life, but in a new way.”
― Doris Lessing, The Four-Gated City

“Novels give you the matrix of emotions, give you the flavor of a time in a way formal history cannot.”
― Doris Lessing, The Four-Gated City

“He said, so you want science? For most people, Copernicus is not yet born. I tell you, you want to learn science? Then every morning you wake and think: the sun is a great mass of white light, and in the sun’s light a dozen small particles of substance spin around. You live in a small bit of sun-substance and you spin around the sun. Now feel it. I said to him: Teach me about Einstein. He said: Every time in the day you come to yourself, think where you are - imagine the earth and the planets and you on a planet spinning around. When you wake in the dark at night, think how your half of the earth is turned away from the sun and how the slopes of the Hindu Kush are just coming into the light. He said, think how in the dark sea, the fishes sink to the depths of the sea, and as the light comes, they rise to the surface of the light. Think of the birds moving all over the earth, backwards and forwards, summer and winter. That’s science. He said, think of the trees breathing in at night, out at day. Feel it. Feel the earth turning under you and the planets moving around together. When you feel this, feel it with every bit of you, so that every minute this is how you feel life, then come to me and we will talk about Einstein.”
― Doris Lessing, The Four-Gated City