A Voyage to Arcturus

... through notable quotes of David Lindsay's masterpiece.

[arcturus]

Small, and overcrowded with men and women. With all those people, confusion would result but for orderly laws, and therefore the laws are of iron. As adventure would be impossible without encroaching on these laws, there is no longer any spirit of adventure amongst the Earthmen. Everything is safe, vulgar, and completed.

Ch. 19 («Sullenbode»)

[arcturus]

You men of Lichststorm don't go far enough. You stop at the pangs, without realizing that they are birth-pangs.

Ch. 18 («Haunte»)

[arcturus]

That pleasant beauty is an insipid compound of Shaping. To see beauty in its terrible purity, you must tear away the pleasure from it.

Ch. 15 («Swaylone's Island»)

[arcturus]

Side by side with it another world exists, and that other world is the true one, and this is all false and deceitful, to the very core... And so it occurs to me that reality and falseness are two words for the same thing.

Ch. 14 («Polecrab»)

[arcturus]

When life dies, it becomes matter. Matter itself dies, but its place is constantly taken by new matter.

Ch. 16 («Leehallfæ»)

[arcturus]

He who is always anxious to teach, will learn nothing.

Ch. 11 («On Disscourn»)