Цитаты из книги «О дивный новый мир / Brave New World. 4 уровень»

“I claim them all,” said the Savage at last.

“civilization has absolutely no need of nobility or heroism. These things are symptoms of political inefficiency. In a properly organized society like ours, nobody has any opportunities for being noble or heroic. Where there are wars, where there are divided allegiances, where there are temptations, objects of love to be fought for or defended-there, obviously, nobility and heroism have some sense. But there aren’t any wars nowadays. The greatest care is taken to prevent you from loving any one too much. There’s no such thing as a divided allegiance; you’re so conditioned that you can’t help doing what you ought to do. And there’s always soma to calm your anger, to reconcile you to your enemies, to make you patient. Christianity without tears-that’s what soma is.”

“But isn’t it to feel there’s a God? When you’re alone-quite alone, in the night, thinking about death…”

independence won’t take you safely to the end.’

“‘A man grows old; he feels in himself that radical sense of weakness, of discomfort, which accompanies the advance of age; and, feeling thus, imagines himself merely sick, lulling his fears with the notion that this distressing condition is due to some particular cause, from which, as from an illness, he hopes to recover. Vain imaginings! That sickness is old age; and a horrible disease it is. They say that it is the fear of death and of what comes after death that makes men turn to religion as they advance in years. But my own experience has given me the conviction that, quite apart from any such terrors or imaginings, the religious sentiment tends to develop as we grow older.’”

“But God doesn’t change.” “Men do, though.”

True,” he added, “they might ask for shorter hours. And of course we could give them shorter hours. But would they be any happier? No, they wouldn’t. The experiment was tried, more than a century and a half ago. The whole of Ireland was put on to the four-hour day. What was the result? Unrest and a large increase in the consumption of soma; that was all.

“Of course it does. Actual happiness always looks bad in comparison with the over-compensations for misery. Happiness is never grand.”

“But I do,” he insisted. “It makes me feel as though I am… more. More on my own, not a part of something else.”

“The lower the caste,” said Mr. Foster, “the shorter the oxygen.”