The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare

Through all this ordeal his root horror had been isolation, and there are no words to express the abyss between isolation and having one ally. It may be conceded to the mathematicians that four is twice two. But two is not twice one; two is two thousand times one. That is why, in spite of a hundred disadvantages, the world will always return to monogamy.

His eyes were alive with intellectual torture, as if pure thought was pain.

The first was the old fear that any miracle might happen, the second the more hopeless modern fear that no miracle can ever happen.

Syme was subject to spasms of singular common sense, not otherwise a part of his character.

He was ascending the house of reason, a thing more hideous than unreason itself.