"Some years ago there was in the city of York a society of magicians."
(Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, by Susanna Clarke)
(Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, by Susanna Clarke)
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From the part Mr. Burke took in the American Revolution, it was natural that I should consider him a friend to mankind; and as our acquaintance commenced on that ground, it would have been more agreeable to me to have had cause to continue in that opinion than to change it.
"Two events, twelve years and thousands of miles apart, serve as brackets for the story we tell in this book."
To uphold the "right of private judgment," and our "Christian liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free;" to add fuel to the fire of investigation, and in the crucible of deep inquiry, melt from the gold of pure religion, the dross of man's invention; to appeal from the erring tribunals of a fallible Priesthood, and restore to its original state the mutilated Testament of the Saviour; also to induce all earnest thinkers to search not a part, but the whole of the Scriptures, if therein they think they will find eternal life; I, as an advocate of free thought and untrammelled opinion, dispute the authority of those uncharitable, bickering, and ignorant Ecclesiastics who first suppressed these gospels and epistles; and I join issue with their Catholic and Protestant successors who have since excluded them from the New Testament, of which they formed a part; and were venerated by the Primitive Churches, during the first four hundred years of the Christian Era.
Best. Intro. Ever.Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral Arm of the Galaxy lies a small un-regarded yellow sun.
~ Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams