Awe enables us to see in the world intimations of the divine, to sense in small things the beginning of infinite significance, to sense the ultimate in the common and the simple, to feel in the rush of the passing the stillness of the eternal.
Now he found out a new thing--namely, that to promise not to do a thing is the surest way in the world to make a body want to go and do that very thing.
If we are willing to act violently in pursuit of a peripheral interest, everyone can be certain that, when a vital interest is at stake, we will be still more violent. 'Credibility' is defined as the willingness to kill a lot of people now for a not very good cause to assure the world that we'll kill a lot more people if we can find a better one.
There was something awesome in the thought of the solitary mortal standing by the open window and summoning in from the gloom outside the spirits of the nether world.