18 quotes
Every man at the bottom of his heart believes that he is a born detective.
The Power-House (1916)
I cannot pry into motives. I only know of the existence of great extra-social intelligences. Let us say that they distrust the machine.
The Power-House (1916)
Civilisation knows how to use such powers as it has, while the immense potentiality of the unlicensed is dissipated in vapour.
The Power-House (1916)
When all is said, we are ruled by the amateurs and the second-rate.
The Power-House (1916)
You think that a wall as solid as the earth separates civilization from barbarism. I tell you the division is a thread, a sheet of glass. A touch here, a push there, and you bring back the reign of Saturn.
The Power-House (1916)
Suppose that the links in the cordon of civilisation were neutralised by other links in a far more potent chain. The earth is seething with incoherent power and unorganised intelligence.
The Power-House (1916)
We think our castles of sand are the ramparts of the universe.
The Power-House (1916)
Civilisation needs more than the law to hold it together. You see, all mankind are not equally willing to accept as divine justice what is called human law.
The Power-House (1916)
I must get off for a bit or I'll bonnet Joggleberry or get up and propose a national monument to Guy Fawkes or something silly.
The Power-House (1916)
If those extra-social brains are so potent, why after all do they effect so little? A dull police-officer, with the machine behind him, can afford to laugh at most experiments in anarchy.
The Power-House (1916)
To be watchful, I decided, was my business. And I could not get rid of the feeling that I might soon have cause for all my vigilance.
The Power-House (1916)
I was a peaceful sedentary man, a lover of a quiet life, with no appetite for perils and commotions. But I was beginning to realise that I was very obstinate.
The Power-House (1916)
That kind of man is not the danger. He is a bit of the machine, a party to the compact. It is the men who stand outside it that are to be reckoned with, the artists in discovery who will never use their knowledge till they can use it with full effect.
The Power-House (1916)
You see only the productions of second-rate folk who are in a hurry to get wealth and fame. The true knowledge, the deadly knowledge, is still kept secret. But, believe me, my friend, it is there.
The Power-House (1916)
You may hear people say that submarines have done away with the battleship, and that aircraft have annulled the mastery of the sea. That is what our pessimists say. But do you imagine that the clumsy submarine or the fragile aeroplane is really the last word of science?
The Power-House (1916)
I venerate the intellect of man. I believe in its undreamed-of possibilities, when it grows free like an oak in the forest and is not dwarfed in a flower-pot. From that allegiance I have never wavered. That is the God I have never forsworn.
The Power-House (1916)
Civilisation is a conspiracy. What value would your police be if every criminal could find a sanctuary across the Channel, or your law courts, if no other tribunal recognised their decisions? Modern life is the silent compact of comfortable folk to keep up pretences. And it will succeed till the day comes when there is another compact to strip them bare.
The Power-House (1916)
And the joke of it was that the man who went out to look for adventure only saw a bit of the game, and I who sat in my chambers saw it all and pulled the strings. 'They also serve who only stand and wait,' you know.
The Power-House (1916)