The Second Sleep Quotes

“All civilisations consider themselves invulnerable; history warns us that none is.”
― Robert Harris, The Second Sleep

“And when did the catastrophe occur?’ ‘Three years later, in two thousand and twenty-five.’ ‘In what”
― Robert Harris, The Second Sleep

“And we also know that almost every person, including children, was issued with a device that enabled them to see and hear one another, however far apart in the world they might be; that these devices were small enough to be carried in the palm of one’s hand; that they gave instant access to all the knowledge and music and opinions and writings in the world; and that in due course they displaced human memory and reasoning and even normal social intercourse – an enfeebling and narcotic power that some say drove their possessors mad, to the extent that their introduction marked the beginning of the end of advanced civilisation.”
― Robert Harris, The Second Sleep

“So Church and state should be separate?’ ‘It would be best for both.’ ‘Then surely we would arrive at a place where the Church would have morals without power, and the state would have power without morality. That is exactly what led the ancients to disaster.”
― Robert Harris, The Second Sleep

“Thirty years ago, the average British household contained enough food to last eight days; today the average is two days. It is no exaggeration to say that London, at any time, exists only six meals away from starvation.”
― Robert Harris, The Second Sleep

“It’s your Church I don’t believe in, sir. Your God I treat”
― Robert Harris, The Second Sleep

“Faith that cannot withstand the truth is not a faith worth holding.”
― Robert Harris, The Second Sleep

“History was a patchwork of voids. The great university libraries and public archives had mostly rotted away or been used as fuel in the Dark Age. An entire generation's correspondence and memories had vanished into this mysterious entity the antiquarians called 'The Cloud'.”
― Robert Harris, The Second Sleep

“church that he guessed must have stood square on this land for at least a thousand years; more likely fifteen hundred. Wrapped”
― Robert Harris, The Second Sleep

“An entire generation’s correspondence and memories had vanished into this mysterious entity the antiquarians called ‘The Cloud’.”
― Robert Harris, The Second Sleep

“And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God… Hancock,”
― Robert Harris, The Second Sleep

“But would they have had anything wiser to say, or would their local vices merely have been spread more widely?”
― Robert Harris, The Second Sleep